                                      1910
                                SHERLOCK HOLMES
                       THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL'S FOOT
                           by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  In recording from time to time some of the curious experiences and
interesting recollections which I associate with my long and
intimate friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have continually
been faced by difficulties caused by his own aversion to publicity. To
his sombre and cynical spirit all popular applause was always
abhorrent, and nothing amused him more at the end of a successful case
than to hand over the actual exposure to some orthodox official, and
to listen with a mocking smile to the general chorus of misplaced
congratulation. It was indeed this attitude upon the part of my friend
and certainly not any lack of interesting material which has caused me
of late years to lay very few of my records before the public. My
participation in some of his adventures was always a privilege which
entailed discretion and reticence upon me.
  It was, then, with considerable surprise that I received a
telegram from Holmes last Tuesday- he has never been known to write
where a telegram would serve- in the following terms:

  Why not tell them of the Cornish horror-strangest case I have
handled.

I have no idea what backward sweep of memory had brought the matter
fresh to his mind, or what freak had caused him to desire that I
should recount it; but I hasten, before another cancelling telegram
may arrive, to hunt out the notes which give me the exact details of
the case and to lay the narrative before my readers.
  It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes's iron
constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of
constant hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by
occasional indiscretions of his own. In March of that year Dr. Moore
Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may
some day recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private
agent lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest
if he wished to avert an absolute breakdown. The state of his health
was not a matter in which he himself took the faintest interest, for
his mental detachment was absolute, but he was induced at last, on the
threat of being permanently disqualified from work, to give himself
a complete change of scene and air. Thus it was that in the early
spring of that year we found ourselves together in a small cottage
near Poldhu Bay, at the further extremity of the Cornish peninsula.
  It was a singular spot, and one peculiarly well suited to the grim
humour of my patient. From the windows of our little whitewashed
house, which stood high upon a grassy headland, we looked down upon
the whole sinister semicircle of Mounts Bay, that old death trap of
sailing vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs and surge swept reefs
on which innumerable seamen have met their end. With a northerly
breeze it lies placid and sheltered, inviting the storm-tossed craft
to tick into it for rest and protection.
  Then come the sudden swirl round of the wind, the blustering gale
from the south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the
last battle in the creaming breakers. The wise mariner stands far
out from that evil place.
  On the land side our surroundings were as sombre as on the sea. It
was a country of rolling moors, lonely and dun-coloured, with an
occasional church tower to mark the site of some old-world village. In
every direction upon these moors there were traces of some vanished
race which had passed utterly away, and left as its sole record
strange monuments of stone, irregular mounds which contained the
burned ashes of the dead, and curious earthworks which hinted at
prehistoric strife. The glamour and mystery of the place, with its
sinister atmosphere of forgotten nations, appealed to the
imagination of my friend, and he spent much of his time in long
walks and solitary meditations upon the moor. The ancient Cornish
language had also arrested his attention, and he had, I remember,
conceived the idea that it was akin to the Chaldean, and had been
largely derived from the Phoenician traders in tin. He had received
a consignment of books upon philology and was settling down to develop
this thesis when suddenly, to my sorrow and to his unfeigned
delight, we found ourselves, even in that land of dreams, plunged into
a problem at our very doors which was more intense, more engrossing,
and infinitely more mysterious than any of those which had driven us
from London. Our simple life and peaceful, healthy routine were
violently interrupted, and we were precipitated into the midst of a
series of events which caused the utmost excitement not only in
Cornwall but throughout the whole west of England. Many of my
readers may retain some recollection of what was called at the time
"The Cornish Horror," though a most imperfect account of the matter
reached the London press. Now, after thirteen years, I will give the
true details of this inconceivable affair to the public.
  I have said that scattered towers marked the villages which dotted
this part of Cornwall. The nearest of these was the hamlet of
Tredannick Wollas, where the cottages of a couple of hundred
inhabitants clustered round an ancient, moss-grown church. The vicar
of the parish, Mr. Roundhay, was something of an archaeologist, and as
such Holmes had made his acquaintance. He was a middle-aged man,
portly and affable, with a considerable fund of local lore. At his
invitation we had taken tea at the vicarage and had come to know also,
Mr. Mortimer Tregennis, an independent gentleman, who increased the
clergyman's scanty resources by taking rooms in his large,
straggling house. The vicar, being a bachelor, was glad to come to
such an arrangement, though he had little in common with his lodger,
who was a thin, dark, spectacled man, with a stoop which gave the
impression of actual, physical deformity. I remember that during our
short visit we found the vicar garrulous, but his lodger strangely
reticent, a sad-faced, introspective man, sitting with averted eyes,
brooding apparently upon his own affairs.
  These were the two men who entered abruptly into our little
sitting-room on Tuesday, March the 16th, shortly after our breakfast
hour, as we were smoking together, preparatory to our daily
excursion upon the moors.
  "Mr. Holmes," said the vicar in an agitated voice, "the most
extraordinary and tragic affair has occurred during the night. It is
the most unheard-of business. We can only regard it as a special
providence that you should chance to be here at the time, for in all
England you are the one man we need."
  I glared at the intrusive vicar with no very friendly eyes; but
Holmes took his pipe from his lips and sat up in his chair like an old
hound who hears the view-halloa. He waved his hand to the sofa, and
our palpitating visitor with his agitated companion sat side by side
upon it. Mr. Mortimer Tregennis was more self-contained than the
clergyman, but the twitching of his thin hands and the brightness of
his dark eyes showed that they shared a common emotion.
  "Shall I speak or you?" he asked of the vicar.
  "Well, as you seem to have made the discovery, whatever it may be,
and the vicar to have had it second-hand, perhaps you had better do
the speaking," said Holmes.
  I glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formally dressed
lodger seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise which
Holmes's simple deduction had brought to their faces.
  "Perhaps I had best say a few words first," said the vicar, "and
then you can judge if you will listen to the details from Mr.
Tregennis, or whether we should not hasten at once to the scene of
this mysterious affair. I may explain, then, that our friend here
spent last evening in the company of his two brothers, Owen and
George, and of his sister Brenda, at their house of Tredannick Wartha,
which is near the old stone cross upon the moor. He left them
shortly after ten o'clock, playing cards round the dining-room
table, in excellent health and spirits. This morning, being an early
riser, he walked in that direction before breakfast and was
overtaken by the carriage of Dr. Richards, who explained that he had
just been sent for on a most urgent call to Tredannick Wartha. Mr.
Mortimer Tregennis naturally went with him. When he arrived at
Tredannick Wartha he found an extraordinary state of things. His two
brothers and his sister were seated round the table exactly as he
had left them, the cards still spread in front of them and the candles
burned down to their sockets. The sister lay back stone-dead in her
chair, while the two brothers sat on each side of her laughing,
shouting, and singing, the senses stricken clean out of them. All
three of them, the dead woman and the two demented men, retained
upon their faces an expression of the utmost horror- a convulsion of
terror which was dreadful to look upon. There was no sign of the
presence of anyone in the house, except Mrs. Porter, the old cook
and housekeeper, who declared that she had slept deeply and heard no
sound during the night. Nothing had been stolen or disarranged, and
there is absolutely no explanation of what the horror can be which has
frightened a woman to death and two strong men out of their senses.
There is the situation, Mr. Holmes, in a nutshell, and if you can help
us to clear it up you will have done a great work."
  I had hoped that in some way I could coax my companion back into the
quiet which had been the object of our journey; but one glance at
his intense face and contracted eyebrows told me how vain was now
the expectation. He sat for some little time in silence, absorbed in
the strange drama which had broken in upon our peace.
  "I will look into this matter," he said at last. "On the face of it,
it would appear to be a case of a very exceptional nature. Have you
been there yourself, Mr. Roundhay?"
  "No, Mr. Holmes. Mr. Tregennis brought back the account to the
vicarage, and I at once hurried over with him to consult you."
  "How far is it to the house where this singular tragedy occurred?"
  "About a mile inland."
  "Then we shall walk over together. But before we start I must ask
you a few questions, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis."
  The other had been silent all this time, but I had observed that his
more controlled excitement was even greater than the obtrusive emotion
of the clergyman. He sat with a pale, drawn face, his anxious gaze
fixed upon Holmes, and his thin hands clasped convulsively together.
His pale lips quivered as he listened to the dreadful experience which
had befallen his family, and his dark eyes seemed to reflect something
of the horror of the scene.
  "Ask what you like, Mr. Holmes," said he eagerly. "It is a bad thing
to speak of, but I will answer you the truth."
  "Tell me about last night."
  "Well, Mr. Holmes, I supped there, as the vicar has said, and my
elder brother George proposed a game of whist afterwards. We sat
down about nine o'clock. It was a quarter-past ten when I moved to go.
I left them all round the table, as merry as could be."
  "Who let you out?"
  "Mrs. Porter had gone to bed, so I let himself out. I shut the
hall door behind me. The window of the room in which they sat was
closed, but the blind was not drawn down. There was no change in
door or window this morning, nor any reason to think that any stranger
had been to the house. Yet there they sat, driven clean mad with
terror, and Brenda lying dead of fright, with her head hanging over
the arm of the chair. I'll never get the sight of that room out of
my mind so long as I live."
  "The facts, as you state them, are certainly most remarkable,"
said Holmes. "I take it that you have no theory yourself which can
in any way account for them?"
  "It's devilish, Mr. Holmes, devilish!" cried Mortimer Tregennis. "It
is not of this world. Something has come into that room which has
dashed the light of reason from their minds. What human contrivance
could do that?"
  "I fear," said Holmes, "that if the matter is beyond humanity it
is certainly beyond me. Yet we must exhaust all natural explanations
before we fall back upon such a theory as this. As to yourself, Mr.
Tregennis, I take it you were divided in some way from your family,
since they lived together and you had rooms apart?"
  "That is so, Mr. Holmes, though the matter is past and done with. We
were a family of tin-miners at Redruth, but we sold out our venture to
a company, and so retired with enough to keep us. I won't deny that
there was some feeling about the division of the money and it stood
between us for a time, but it was all forgiven and forgotten, and we
were the best of friends together."
  "Looking back at the evening which you spent together, does anything
stand out in your memory as throwing any possible light upon the
tragedy? Think carefully, Mr. Tregennis, for any clue which can help
me."
  "There is nothing at all, sir."
  "Your people were in their usual spirits?"
  "Never better."
  "Were they nervous people? Did they ever show any apprehension of
coming danger?"
  "Nothing of the kind."
  "You have nothing to add then, which could assist me?"
  Mortimer Tregennis considered earnestly for a moment.
  "There is one thing occurs to me," said he at last. "As we sat at
the table my back was to the window, and my brother George, he being
my partner at cards, was facing it. I saw him once look hard over my
shoulder, so I turned round and looked also. The blind was up and
the window shut, but I could just make out the bushes on the lawn, and
it seemed to me for a moment that I saw something moving among them. I
couldn't even say if it was man or animal, but I just thought there
was something there. When I asked him what he was looking at, he
told me that he had the same feeling. That is all that I can say."
  "Did you not investigate?"
  "No; the matter passed as unimportant."
  "You left them, then, without any premonition of evil?"
  "None at all."
  "I am not clear how you came to hear the news so early this
morning."
  "I am an early riser and generally take a walk before breakfast.
This morning I had hardly started when the doctor in his carriage
overtook me. He told me that old Mrs. Porter had sent a boy down
with an urgent message. I sprang in beside him and we drove on. When
we got there we looked into that dreadful room. The candles and the
fire must have burned out hours before, and they had been sitting
there in the dark until dawn had broken. The doctor said Brenda must
have been dead at least six hours. There were no signs of violence.
She just lay across the arm of the chair with that look on her face.
George and Owen were singing snatches of songs and gibbering like
two great apes. Oh, it was awful to see! I couldn't stand it, and
the doctor was as white as a sheet. Indeed, he fell into a chair in
a sort of faint, and we nearly had him on our hands as well."
  "Remarkable- most remarkable!" said Holmes, rising and taking his
hat. "I think, perhaps, we had better go down to Tredannick Wartha
without further delay. I confess that I have seldom known a case which
at first sight presented a more singular problem."

  Our proceedings of that first morning did little to advance the
investigation. It was marked, however, at the outset by an incident
which left the most sinister impression upon my mind. The approach
to the spot at which the tragedy occurred is down a narrow, winding,
country lane, While we made our way along it we heard the rattle of
a carriage coming towards us and stood aside to let it pass. As it
drove by us I caught a glimpse through the closed window of a horribly
contorted, grinning face glaring out at us. Those staring eyes and
gnashing teeth flashed past us like a dreadful vision.
  "My brothers!" cried Mortimer Tregennis, white to his lips. "They
are taking them to Helston."
  We looked with horror after the black carriage, lumbering upon its
way. Then we turned our steps towards this ill-omened house in which
they had met their strange fate.
  It was a large and bright dwelling, rather a villa than a cottage,
with a considerable garden which was already, in that Cornish air,
well filled with spring flowers. Towards this garden the window of the
sitting-room fronted, and from it, according to Mortimer Tregennis,
must have come that thing of evil which had by sheer horror in a
single instant blasted their minds. Holmes walked slowly and
thoughtfully among the flower-plots and along the path before we
entered the porch. So absorbed was he in his thoughts, I remember,
that he stumbled over the watering-pot, upset its contents, and
deluged both our feet and the garden path. Inside the house we were
met by the elderly Cornish housekeeper, Mrs, Porter, who, with the aid
of a young girl, looked after the wants of the family. She readily
answered all Holmes's questions. She had heard nothing in the night.
Her employers had all been in excellent spirits lately, and she had
never known them more cheerful and prosperous. She had fainted with
horror upon entering the room in the morning and seeing that
dreadful company round the table. She had, when she recovered,
thrown open the window to let the morning air in, and had run down
to the lane, whence she sent a farm-lad for the doctor. The lady was
on her bed upstairs if we cared to see her. It took four strong men to
get the brothers into the asylum carriage. She would not herself
stay in the house another day and was starting that very afternoon
to rejoin her family at St. Ives.
  We ascended the stairs and viewed the body. Miss Brenda Tregennis
had been a very beautiful girl, though now verging upon middle age.
Her dark, clear-cut face was handsome, even in death, but there
still lingered upon it something of that convulsion of horror which
had been her last human emotion. From her bedroom we descended to
the sitting-room, where this strange tragedy had actually occurred.
The charred ashes of the overnight fire lay in the grate. On the table
were the four guttered and burned-out candles, with the cards
scattered over its surface. The chairs had been moved back against the
walls, but all else was as it had been the night before. Holmes
paced with light, swift steps about the room; he sat in the various
chairs, drawing them up and reconstructing their positions. He
tested how much of the garden was visible; he examined the floor,
the ceiling, and the fireplace; but never once did I see that sudden
brightening of his eyes and tightening of his lips which would have
told me that he saw some gleam of light in this utter darkness.
  "Why a fire?" he asked once. "Had they always a fire in this small
room on a spring evening?"
  Mortimer Tregennis explained that the night was cold and damp. For
that reason, after his arrival, the fire was lit. "What are you
going to do now, Mr. Holmes?" he asked.
  My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm. "I think, Watson,
that I shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning which you have so
often and so justly condemned," said he. "With your permission,
gentlemen, we will now return to our cottage, for I am not aware
that any new factor is likely to come to our notice here. I will
turn the facts over in my mind, Mr. Tregennis, and should anything
occur to me I will certainly communicate with you and the vicar. In
the meantime I wish you both good-morning."
  It was not until long after we were back in Poldhu Cottage that
Holmes broke his complete and absorbed silence. He sat coiled in his
armchair, his haggard and ascetic face hardly visible amid the blue
swirl of his tobacco smoke, his black brows drawn down, his forehead
contracted, his eyes vacant and far away. Finally he laid down his
pipe and sprang to his feet.
  "It won't do, Watson!" said he with a laugh. "Let us walk along
the cliffs together and search for flint arrows. We are more likely to
find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain work without
sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to
pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson- all else will
come.
  "Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson," he continued as we
skirted the cliffs together. "Let us get a firm grip of the very
little which we do know, so that when fresh facts arise we may be
ready to fit them into their places. I take it, in the first place,
that neither of us is prepared to admit diabolical intrusions into the
affairs of men. Let us begin by ruling that entirely out of our minds.
Very good. There remain three persons who have been grievously
stricken by some conscious or unconscious human agency. That is firm
ground. Now, where did this occur? Evidently, assuming his narrative
to be true, it was immediately after Mr. Mortimer Tregennis had left
the room. That is a very important point. The presumption is that it
was within a few minutes afterwards. The cards still lay upon the
table. It was already past their usual hour for bed. Yet they had
not changed their position or pushed back their chairs. I repeat,
then, that the occurrence was immediately after his departure, and not
later than eleven o'clock last night.
  "Our next obvious step is to check, so far as we can, the
movements of Mortimer Tregennis after he left the room. In this
there is no difficulty, and they seem to be above suspicion. Knowing
my methods as you do, you were, of course, conscious of the somewhat
clumsy water-pot expedient by which I obtained a clearer impress of
his foot than might otherwise have been possible. The wet, sandy
path took it admirably. Last night was also wet, you will remember,
and it was not difficult- having obtained a sample print- to pick
out his track among others and to follow his movements. He appears
to have walked away swiftly in the direction of the vicarage.
  "If, then, Mortimer Tregennis disappeared from the scene, and yet
some outside person affected the cardplayers, how can we reconstruct
that person, and how was such an impression of horror conveyed? Mrs.
Porter may be eliminated. She is evidently harmless. Is there any
evidence that someone crept up to the garden window and in some manner
produced so terrific an effect that he drove those who saw it out of
their senses? The only suggestion in this direction comes from
Mortimer Tregennis himself, who says that his brother spoke about some
movement in the garden. That is certainly remarkable, as the night was
rainy, cloudy, and dark. Anyone who had the design to alarm these
people would be compelled to place his very face against the glass
before he could be seen. There is a three-foot flower-border outside
this window, but no indication of a footmark. It is difficult to
imagine, then, how an outsider could have made so terrible an
impression upon the company, nor have we found any possible motive for
so strange and elaborate an attempt. You perceive our difficulties,
Watson?"
  "They are only too clear," I answered with conviction.
  "And yet, with a little more material, we may prove that they are
not insurmountable," said Holmes. "I fancy that among your extensive
archives, Watson, you may find some which were nearly as obscure.
Meanwhile, we shall put the case aside until more accurate data are
available, and devote the rest of our morning to the pursuit of
neolithic man."
  I may have commented upon my friend's power of mental detachment,
but never have I wondered at it more than upon that spring morning
in Cornwall when for two hours he discoursed upon celts, arrowheads,
and shards, as lightly as if no sinister mystery were waiting for
his solution. It was not until we had returned in the afternoon to our
cottage that we found a visitor awaiting us, who soon brought our
minds back to the matter in hand. Neither of us needed to be told
who that visitor was. The huge body, the craggy and deeply seamed face
with the fierce eyes and hawk-like nose, the grizzled hair which
nearly brushed our cottage ceiling, the beard- golden at the fringes
and white near the lips, save for the nicotine stain from his
perpetual cigar- all these were as well known in London as in
Africa, and could only be associated with the tremendous personality
of Dr. Leon Sterndale, the great lion-hunter and explorer.
  We had heard of his presence in the district and had once or twice
caught sight of his tall figure upon the moorland paths. He made no
advances to us, however, nor would we have dreamed of doing so to him,
as it was well known that it was his love of seclusion which caused
him to spend the greater part of the intervals between his journeys in
a small bungalow buried in the lonely wood of Beauchamp Arriance.
Here, amid his books and his maps, he lived an absolutely lonely life,
attending to his own simple wants and paying little apparent heed to
the affairs of his neighbours. It was a surprise to me, therefore,
to hear him asking Holmes in an eager voice whether he had made any
advance in his reconstruction of this mysterious episode. "The
county police are utterly at fault," said he, "but perhaps your
wider experience has suggested some conceivable explanation. My only
claim to being taken into your confidence is that during my many
residences here I have come to know this family of Tregennis very
well- indeed, upon my Cornish mother's side I could call them cousins-
and their strange fate has naturally been a great shock to me. I may
tell you that I had got as far as Plymouth upon my way to Africa,
but the news reached me this morning, and I came straight back again
to help in the inquiry."
  Holmes raised his eyebrows.
  "Did you lose your boat through it?"
  "I will take the next."
  "Dear me! that is friendship indeed."
  "I tell you they were relatives."
  "Quite so- cousins of your mother. Was your baggage aboard the
ship?"
  "Some of it, but the main part at the hotel."
  "I see. But surely this event could not have found its way into
the Plymouth morning papers."
  "No, sir; I had a telegram."
  "Might I ask from whom?"
  A shadow passed over the gaunt face of the explorer.
  "You are very inquisitive, Mr. Holmes."
  "It is my business."
  With an effort Dr. Sterndale recovered his ruffled composure.
  "I have no objection to telling you," he said. "It was Mr. Roundhay,
the vicar, who sent me the telegram which recalled me."
  "Thank you," said Holmes. "I may say in answer to your original
question that I have not cleared my mind entirely on the subject of
this case, but that I have every hope of reaching some conclusion.
It would be premature to say more."
  "Perhaps you would not mind telling me if your suspicions point in
any particular direction?"
  "No, I can hardly answer that."
  "Then I have wasted my time and need not prolong my visit." The
famous doctor strode out of our cottage in considerable ill-humour,
and within five minutes Holmes had followed him. I saw him no more
until the evening, when he returned with a slow step and haggard
face which assured me that he had made no great progress with his
investigation. He glanced at a telegram which awaited him and threw it
into the grate.
  "From the Plymouth hotel, Watson," he said. "I learned the name of
it from the vicar, and I wired to make certain that Dr. Leon
Sterndale's account was true. It appears that he did indeed spend last
night there, and that he has actually allowed some of his baggage to
go on to Africa, while he returned to be present at this
investigation. What do you make of that, Watson?"
  "He is deeply interested."
  "Deeply interested- yes. There is a thread where which we have not
yet grasped and which might lead us through the tangle. Cheer up,
Watson, for I am very sure that our material has not yet all come to
hand. When it does we may soon leave our difficulties behind us."
  Little did I think how soon the words of Holmes would be realized,
or how strange and sinister would be that new development which opened
up an entirely fresh line of investigation. I was shaving at my window
in the morning when I heard the rattle of hoofs and, looking up, saw a
dog-cart coming at a gallop down the road. It pulled up at our door,
and our friend, the vicar, sprang from it and rushed up our garden
path. Holmes was already dressed, and we hastened down to meet him.
  Our visitor was so excited that he could hardly articulate, but at
last in gasps and bursts his tragic story came out of him.
  "We are devil-ridden, Mr. Holmes! My poor parish is devil-ridden!"
he cried. "Satan himself is loose in it! We are given over into his
hands!" He danced about in his agitation, a ludicrous object if it
were not for his ashy face and startled eyes. Finally he shot out
his terrible news.
  "Mr. Mortimer Tregennis died during the night, and with exactly
the same symptoms as the rest of his family."
  Holmes sprang to his feet, all energy in an instant.
  "Can you fit us both into your dog-cart?"
  "Yes, I can."
  "Then, Watson, we will postpone our breakfast. Mr. Roundhay, we
are entirely at your disposal. Hurry- hurry, before things get
disarranged."
  The lodger occupied two rooms at the vicarage, which were in an
angle by themselves, the one above the other. Below was a large
sitting-room; above, his bedroom. They looked out upon a croquet
lawn which came up to the windows. We had arrived before the doctor or
the police, so that everything was absolutely undisturbed. Let me
describe exactly the scene as we saw it upon that misty March morning.
It left an impression which can never be effaced from my mind.
  The atmosphere of the room was of a horrible and depressing
stuffiness. The servant who had first entered had thrown up the
window, or it would have been even more intolerable. This might partly
be due to the fact that a lamp stood flaring and smoking on the centre
table. Beside it sat the dead man, leaning back in his chair, his thin
beard projecting, his spectacles pushed up on to his forehead, and his
lean dark face turned towards the window and twisted into the same
distortion of terror which had marked the features of his dead sister.
His limbs were convulsed and his fingers contorted as though he had
died in a very paroxysm of fear. He was fully clothed, though there
were signs that his dressing had been done in a hurry. We had
already learned that his bed had been slept in, and that the tragic
end had come to him in the early morning.
  One realized the red-hot energy which underlay Holmes's phlegmatic
exterior when one saw the sudden change which came over him from the
moment that he entered the fatal apartment. In an instant he was tense
and alert, his eves shining, his face set, his limbs quivering with
eager activity. He was out on the lawn, in through the window, round
the room, and up into the bedroom, for all the world like a dashing
foxhound drawing a cover. In the bedroom he made a rapid cast around
and ended by throwing open the window, which appeared to give him some
fresh cause for excitement, for he leaned out of it with loud
ejaculations of interest and delight. Then he rushed down the
stairs, out through the open window, threw himself upon his face on
the lawn, sprang up and into the room once more, all with the energy
of the hunter who is at the very heels of his quarry. The lamp,
which was an ordinary standard, he examined with minute care, making
certain measurements upon its bowl. He carefully scrutinized with
his lens the tale shield which covered the top of the chimney and
scraped off some ashes which adhered to its upper surface, putting
some of them into an envelope, which he placed in his pocketbook.
Finally, just as the doctor and the official police put in an
appearance, he beckoned to the vicar and we all three went out upon
the lawn.
  "I am glad to say that my investigation has not been entirely
barren," he remarked. "I cannot remain to discuss the matter with
the police, but I should be exceedingly obliged, Mr. Roundhay, if
you would give the inspector my compliments and direct his attention
to the bedroom window and to the sitting-room lamp. Each is
suggestive, and together they are almost conclusive. If the police
would desire further information I shall be happy to see any of them
at the cottage. And now, Watson, I think that, perhaps, we shall be
better employed elsewhere."
  It may be that the police resented the intrusion of an amateur, or
that they imagined themselves to be upon some hopeful line of
investigation; but it is certain that we heard nothing from them for
the next two days. During this time Holmes spent some of his time
smoking and dreaming in the cottage; but a greater portion in
country walks which he undertook alone, returning after many hours
without remark as to where he had been. One experiment served to
show me the line of his investigation. He had bought a lamp which
was the duplicate of the one which had burned in the room of
Mortimer Tregennis on the morning of the tragedy. This he filled
with the same oil as that used at the vicarage, and he carefully timed
the period which it would take to be exhausted. Another experiment
which he made was of a more unpleasant nature, and one which I am
not likely ever to forget.
  "You will remember, Watson," he remarked one afternoon, "that
there is a single common point of resemblance in the varying reports
which have reached us. This concerns the effect of the atmosphere of
the room in each case upon those who had first entered it. You will
recollect that Mortimer Tregennis, in describing the episode of his
last visit to his brother's house, remarked that the doctor on
entering the room fell into a chair? You had forgotten? Well, I can
answer for it that it was so. Now, you will remember also that Mrs.
Porter, the housekeeper, told us that she herself fainted upon
entering the room and had afterwards opened the window. In the
second case- that of Mortimer Tregennis himself- you cannot have
forgotten the horrible stuffiness of the room when we arrived,
though the servant had thrown open the window. That servant, I found
upon inquiry, was so ill that she had gone to her bed. You will admit,
Watson, that these facts are very suggestive. In each case there is
evidence of a poisonous atmosphere. In each case, also, there is
combustion going on in the room- in the one case a fire, in the
other a lamp. The fire was needed, but the lamp was lit- as a
comparison of the oil consumed will show- long after it was broad
daylight. Why? Surely because there is some connection between three
things- the burning, the stuffy atmosphere, and, finally, the
madness or death of those unfortunate people. That is clear, is it
not?"
  "It would appear so."
  "At least we may accept it as a working hypothesis. We will suppose,
then, that something was burned in each case which produced an
atmosphere causing strange toxic effects. Very good. In the first
instance- that of the Tregennis family- this substance was placed in
the fire. Now the window was shut, but the fire would naturally
carry fumes to some extent up the chimney. Hence one would expect
the effects of the poison to be less than in the second case, where
there was less escape for the vapour. The result seems to indicate
that it was so, since in the first case only the woman, who had
presumably the more sensitive organism, was killed, the others
exhibiting that temporary or permanent lunacy which is evidently the
first effect of the drug. In the second case the result was
complete. The facts, therefore, seem to bear out the theory of a
poison which worked by combustion.
  "With this train of reasoning in my head I naturally looked about in
Mortimer Tregennis's room to find some remains of this substance.
The obvious place to look was the talc shield or smoke-guard of the
lamp. There, sure enough, I perceived a number of flaky ashes, and
round the edges a fringe of brownish powder, which had not yet been
consumed. Half of this I took, as you saw, and I placed it in an
envelope."
  "Why half, Holmes?"
  "It is not for me, my dear Watson, to stand in the way of the
official police force. I leave them all the evidence which I found.
The poison still remained upon the talc had they the wit to find it.
Now, Watson, we will light our lamp; we will, however, take the
precaution to open our window to avoid the premature decease of two
deserving members of society, and you will seat yourself near that
open window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you
determine to have nothing to do with the affair. Oh, you will see it
out, will you? I thought I knew my Watson. This chair I will place
opposite yours, so that we may be the same distance from the poison
and face to face. The door we will leave ajar. Each is now in a
position to watch the other and to bring the experiment to an end
should the symptoms seem alarming. Is that all clear? Well, then, I
take our powder- or what remains of it- from the envelope, and I lay
it above the burning lamp. So! Now, Watson, let us sit down and
await developments."
  They were not long in coming. I had hardly settled in my chair
before I was conscious of a thick, musky odour, subtle and nauseous.
At the very first whiff of it my brain and my imagination were
beyond all control. A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and
my mind told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring
out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all
that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague
shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and
a warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable
dweller upon the threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. A
freezing horror took possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising,
that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my
tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that
something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely aware of
some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached
from myself. At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke
through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes's face,
white, rigid, and drawn with horror- the very look which I had seen
upon the features of the dead. It was that vision which gave me an
instant of sanity and of strength. I dashed from my chair, threw my
arms round Holmes, and together we lurched through the door, and an
instant afterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and
were lying side by side, conscious only of the glorious sunshine which
was bursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror which had
girt us in. Slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a
landscape until peace and reason had returned, and we were sitting
upon the grass, wiping our clammy foreheads, and looking with
apprehension at each other to mark the last traces of that terrific
experience which we had undergone.
  "Upon my word, Watson!" said Holmes at last with an unsteady
voice, "I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an
unjustifiable experiment even for one's self, and doubly so for a
friend. I am really very sorry."
  "You know," I answered with some emotion, for I had never seen so
much of Holmes's heart before, "that it is my greatest joy and
privilege to help you."
  He relapsed at once into the half-humorous, half-cynical vein
which was his habitual attitude to those about him. "It would be
superfluous to drive us mad, my dear Watson," said he. "A candid
observer would certainly declare that we were so already before we
embarked upon so wild an experiment. I confess that I never imagined
that the effect could be so sudden and so severe." He dashed into
the cottage, and, reappearing with the burning lamp held at full arm's
length, he threw it among a bank of brambles. "We must give the room a
little time to clear. I take it, Watson, that you have no longer a
shadow of a doubt as to how these tragedies were produced?"
  "None whatever."
  "But the cause remains as obscure as before. Come into the arbour
here and let us discuss it together. That villainous stuff seems still
to linger round my throat. I think we must admit that all the evidence
points to this man, Mortimer Tregennis, having been the criminal in
the first tragedy, though he was the victim in the second one. We must
remember, in the first place, that there is some story of a family
quarrel, followed by a reconciliation. How bitter that quarrel may
have been, or how hollow the reconciliation we cannot tell. When I
think of Mortimer Tregennis, with the foxy face and the small
shrewd, beady eyes behind the spectacles, he is not a man whom I
should judge to be of a particularly forgiving disposition. Well, in
the next place, you will remember that this idea of someone moving
in the garden, which took our attention for a moment from the real
cause of the tragedy, emanated from him. He had a motive in misleading
us. Finally, if he did not throw this substance into the fire at the
moment of leaving the room, who did do so? The affair happened
immediately after his departure. Had anyone else come in, the family
would certainly have risen from the table. Besides, in peaceful
Cornwall, visitors do not arrive after ten o'clock at night. We may
take it then, that all the evidence points to Mortimer Tregennis as
the culprit."
  "Then his own death was suicide!"
  "Well, Watson, it is on the face of it a not impossible supposition.
The man who had the guilt upon his soul of having brought such a
fate upon his own family might well be driven by remorse to inflict it
upon himself. There are, however, some cogent reasons against it.
Fortunately, there is one man in England who knows all about it, and I
have made arrangements by which we shall hear the facts this afternoon
from his own lips. Ah! he is a little before his time. Perhaps you
would kindly step this way, Dr. Leon Sterndale. We have been
conducting a chemical experiment indoors which has left our little
room hardly fit for the reception of so distinguished a visitor."
  I had heard the click of the garden gate, and now the majestic
figure of the great African explorer appeared upon the path. He turned
in some surprise towards the rustic arbour in which we sat.
  "You sent for me, Mr. Holmes. I had your note about an hour ago, and
I have come, though I really do not know why I should obey your
summons."
  "Perhaps we can clear the point up before we separate," said Holmes.
"Meanwhile, I am much obliged to you for your courteous
acquiescence. You will excuse this informal reception in the open air,
but my friend Watson and I have nearly furnished an additional chapter
to what the papers call the Cornish Horror, and we prefer a clear
atmosphere for the present. Perhaps, since the matters which we have
to discuss will affect you personally in a very intimate fashion, it
is as well that we should talk where there can be no eavesdropping."
  The explorer to his cigar from his lips and gazed sternly at my
companion.
  "I am at a loss to know, sir," he said, "what you can have to
speak about which affects me personally in a very intimate fashion."
  "The killing of Mortimer Tregennis," said Holmes.
  For a moment I wished that I were armed. Sterndale's fierce face
turned to a dusky red, his eyes glared, and the knotted, passionate
veins started out in his forehead, while he sprang forward with
clenched hands towards my companion. Then he stopped, and with a
violent effort he resumed a cold, rigid calmness, which was,
perhaps, more suggestive of danger than his hot-headed outburst.
  "I have lived so long among savages and beyond the law," said he,
"that I have got into the way of being a law to myself. You would do
well, Mr. Holmes, not to forget it, for I have no desire to do you
an injury."
  "Nor have I any desire to do you an injury Dr. Sterndale. Surely the
clearest proof of it is that, knowing what I know, I have sent for you
and not for the police."
  Sterndale sat down with a gasp, overawed for, perhaps, the first
time in his adventurous life. There was a calm assurance of power in
Holmes's manner which could not be withstood. Our visitor stammered
for a moment, his great hands opening and shutting in his agitation.
  "What do you mean?" he asked at last. "If this is bluff upon your
part, Mr. Holmes, you have chosen a bad man for your experiment. Let
us have no more beating about the bush. What do you mean?"
  "I will tell you," said Holmes, "and the reason why I tell you is
that I hope frankness may beget frankness. What the next step may be
will depend entirely upon the nature of your own defence."
  "My defence?"
  "Yes, sir."
  "My defence against what?"
  "Against the charge of killing Mortimer Tregennis."
  Sterndale mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. "Upon my
word, you are getting on," said he. "Do all your successes depend upon
this prodigious power of bluff?"
  "The bluff," said Holmes sternly, "is upon your side, Dr. Leon
Sterndale, and not upon mine. As a proof I will tell you some of the
facts upon which my conclusions are based. Of your return from
Plymouth, allowing much of your property to go on to Africa, I will
say nothing save that it first informed me that you were one of the
factors which had to be taken into account in reconstructing this
drama-"
  "I came back-"
  "I have heard your reasons and regard them as unconvincing and
inadequate. We will pass that. You came down here to ask me whom I
suspected. I refused to answer you. You then went to the vicarage,
waited outside it for some time, and finally returned to your
cottage."
  "How do you know that?"
  "I followed you."
  "I saw no one."
  "That is what you may expect to see when I follow you. You spent a
restless night at your cottage, and you formed certain plans, which in
the early morning you proceeded to put into execution. Leaving your
door just as day was breaking, you filled your pocket with some
reddish gravel that was lying heaped beside your gate."
  Sterndale gave a violent start and looked at Holmes in amazement.
  "You then walked swiftly for the mile which separated you from the
vicarage. You were wearing, I may remark, the same pair of ribbed
tennis shoes which are at the present moment upon your feet. At the
vicarage you passed through the orchard and the side hedge, coming out
under the window of the lodger Tregennis. It was now daylight, but the
household was not yet stirring. You drew some of the gravel from
your pocket, and you threw it up at the window above you."
  Sterndale sprang to his feet.
  "I believe that you are the devil himself!" he cried.
  Holmes smiled at the compliment. "It took two, or possibly three,
handfuls before the lodger came to the window. You beckoned him to
come down. He dressed hurriedly and descended to his sitting-room. You
entered by the window. There was an interview- a short one- during
which you walked up and down the room. Then you passed out and
closed the window, standing on the lawn outside smoking a cigar and
watching what occurred. Finally, after the death of Tregennis, you
withdrew as you had come. Now, Dr. Sterndale, how do you justify
such conduct, and what are the motives for your actions? If you
prevaricate or trifle with me, I give you my assurance that the matter
will pass out of my hands forever."
  Our visitor's face had turned ashen gray as he listened to the words
of his accuser. Now he sat for some time in thought with his face sunk
in his hands. Then with a sudden impulsive gesture he plucked a
photograph from his breast-pocket and threw it on the rustic table
before us.
  "That is why I have done it," said he.
  It showed the bust and face of a very beautiful woman. Holmes
stooped over it.
  "Brenda Tregennis," said he.
  "Yes, Brenda Tregennis," repeated our visitor. "For years I have
loved her. For years she has loved me. There is the secret of that
Cornish seclusion which people have marvelled at. It has brought me
close to the one thing on earth that was dear to me. I could not marry
her, for I have a wife who has left me for years and yet whom, by
the deplorable laws of England, I could not divorce. For years
Brenda waited. For years I waited. And this is what we have waited
for." A terrible sob shook his great frame, and he clutched his throat
under his brindled beard. Then with an effort he mastered himself
and spoke on:
  "The vicar knew. He was in our confidence. He would tell you that
she was an angel upon earth. That was why he telegraphed to me and I
returned. What was my baggage or Africa to me when I learned that such
a fate had come upon my darling? There you have the missing clue to my
action, Mr. Holmes."
  "Proceed," said my friend.
  Dr. Sterndale drew from his pocket a paper packet and laid it upon
the table. On the outside was written "Radix pedis diaboli" with a red
poison label beneath it. He pushed it towards me. "I understand that
you are a doctor, sir. Have you ever heard of this preparation?"
  "Devil's-foot root! No, I have never heard of it."
  "It is no reflection upon your professional knowledge," said he,
"for I believe that, save for one sample in a laboratory at Buda,
there is no other specimen in Europe. It has not yet found its way
either into the pharmacopoeia or into the literature of toxicology.
The root is shaped like a foot, half human, half goatlike; hence the
fanciful name given by a botanical missionary. It is used as an ordeal
poison by the medicine-men in certain districts of West Africa and
is kept as a secret among them. This particular specimen I obtained
under very extraordinary circumstances in the Ubangi country." He
opened the paper as he spoke and disclosed a heap of reddish-brown,
snuff-like powder.
  "Well, sir?" asked Holmes sternly.
  "I am about to tell you, Mr. Holmes, all that actually occurred, for
you already know so much that it is clearly to my interest that you
should know all. I have already explained the relationship in which
I stood to the Tregennis family. For the sake of the sister I was
friendly with the brothers. There was a family quarrel about money
which estranged this man Mortimer, but it was supposed to be made
up, and I afterwards met him as I did the others. He was a sly,
subtle, scheming man, and several things arose which gave me a
suspicion of him, but I had no cause for any positive quarrel.
  "One day, only a couple of weeks ago, he came down to my cottage and
I showed him some of my African curiosities. Among other things I
exhibited this powder, and I told him of its strange properties, how
it stimulates those brain centres which control the emotion of fear,
and how either madness or death is the fate of the unhappy native
who is subjected to the ordeal by the priest of his tribe. I told
him also how powerless European science would be to detect it. How
he took it I cannot say, for I never left the room, but there is no
doubt that it was then, while I was opening cabinets and stooping to
boxes, that he managed to abstract some of the devil's-foot root. I
well remember how he plied me with questions as to the amount and
the time that was needed for its effect, but I little dreamed that
he could have a personal reason for asking.
  "I thought no more of the matter until the vicar's telegram
reached me at Plymouth. This villain had thought that I would be at
sea before the news could reach me, and that I should be lost for
years in Africa. But I returned at once. Of course, I could not listen
to the details without feeling assured that my poison had been used. I
came round to see you on the chance that some other explanation had
suggested itself to you. But there could be none. I was convinced that
Mortimer Tregennis was the murderer; that for the sake of money, and
with the idea, perhaps, that if the other members of his family were
all insane he would be the sole guardian of their joint property, he
had used the devil's-foot powder upon them, driven two of them out
of their senses, and killed his sister Brenda, the one human being
whom I have ever loved or who has ever loved me. There was his
crime; what was to be his punishment?
  "Should I appeal to the law? Where were my proofs? I knew that the
facts were true, but could I help to make a jury of countrymen believe
so fantastic a story? I might or I might not. But I could not afford
to fail. My soul cried out for revenge. I have said to you once
before, Mr. Holmes, that I have spent much of my life outside the law,
and that I have come at last to be a law to myself. So it was now. I
determined that the fate which he had given to others should be shared
by himself. Either that or I would do justice upon him with my own
hand. In all England there can be no man who sets less value upon
his own life than I do at the present moment.
  "Now I have told you all. You have yourself supplied the rest. I
did, as you say, after a restless night, set off early from my
cottage. I foresaw the difficulty of arousing him, so I gathered
some gravel from the pile which you have mentioned, and I used it to
throw up to his window. He came down and admitted me through the
window of the sitting-room. I laid his offence before him. I told
him that I had come both as judge and executioner. The wretch sank
into a chair, paralyzed at the sight of my revolver. I lit the lamp,
put the powder above it, and stood outside the window, ready to
carry out my threat to shoot him should he try to leave the room. In
five minutes he died. My God! how he died! But my heart was flint, for
he endured nothing which my innocent darling had not felt before
him. There is my story, Mr. Holmes. Perhaps, if you loved a woman, you
would have done as much yourself. At any rate, I am in your hands. You
can take what steps you like. As I have already said, there is no
man living who can fear death less than I do."
  Holmes sat for some little time in silence.
  "What were your plans?" he asked at last.
  "I had intended to bury myself in central Africa. My work there is
but half finished."
  "Go and do the other half," said Holmes. "I at least, am not
prepared to prevent you."
  Dr. Sterndale raised his giant figure, bowed gravely, and walked
from the arbour. Holmes lit his pipe and handed me his pouch.
  "Some fumes which are not poisonous would be a welcome change," said
he. "I think you must agree, Watson, that it is not a case in which we
are called upon to interfere. Our investigation has been
independent, and our action shall be so also. You would not denounce
the man?"
  "Certainly not," I answered.
  "I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved
had met such an end, I might have done as our lawless lion-hunter
has done. Who knows? Well, Watson, I will not offend your intelligence
by explaining what is obvious. The gravel upon the window sill was, of
course, the starting-point of my research. It was unlike anything in
the vicarage garden. Only when my attention had been drawn to Dr.
Sterndale and his cottage did I find its counterpart. The lamp shining
in broad daylight and the remains of powder upon the shield were
successive links in a fairly obvious chain. And now, my dear Watson, I
think we may dismiss the matter from our mind and go back with a clear
conscience to the study of those Chaldean roots which are surely to be
traced in the Cornish branch of the great Celtic speech."


                          -THE END-
