                                      1890
                                SHERLOCK HOLMES
                                THE SIGN OF FOUR
                           by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
CH1
                       Chapter 1
                THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION

  Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the
mantelpiece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case.
With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate
needle and rolled back his left shirtcuff. For some little time his
eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted
and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he thrust the
point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the
velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction.
  Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this
performance, but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the
contrary, from day to day I had become more irritable at the sight,
and my conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I
had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I had registered
a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the subject; but there was
that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the
last man with whom one would care to take anything approaching to a
liberty. His great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience
which I had had of many extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident
and backward in crossing him.
  Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken
with my lunch or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme
deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could bold out no
longer.
  "Which is it to-day," I asked, "morphine or cocaine?"
  He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume
which he had opened.
  "It is cocaine," he said, "a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care
to try it?"
  "No, indeed," I answered brusquely. "My constitution has not got
over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra
strain upon it."
  He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he said.
"I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it,
however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that
its secondary action is a matter of small moment."
  "But consider!" I said earnestly. "Count the cost! Your brain may,
as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid
process which involves increased tissue-change and may at least
leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes
upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should
you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great
powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not
only as one comrade to another but as a medical man to one for whose
constitution he is to some extent answerable."
  He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger-tips
together, and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who
has a relish for conversation.
  "My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me
work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate
analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then
with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence.
I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own
particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one
in the world."
  "The only unofficial detective?" I said, raising my eyebrows.
  "The only unofficial consulting detective," he answered. "I am the
last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson, or
Lestrade, or Athelney Jones are out of their depths- which, by the
way, is their normal state- the matter is laid before me. I examine
the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist's opinion. I
claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The
work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers,
is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience of
my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case."
  "Yes, indeed," said I cordially. "I was never so struck by
anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure, with
the somewhat fantastic title of `A Study in Scarlet.'"
  He shook his head sadly.
  "I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I cannot congratulate you
upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should
be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted
to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as
if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth
proposition of Euclid."
  "But the romance was there," I remonstrated. "I could not tamper
with the facts."
  "Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of
proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in
the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning
from effects to causes, by which I succeeded in unravelling it."
  I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially
designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the
egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should
be devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the
years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that
a small vanity underlay my companion's quiet and didactic manner. I
made no remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had had a
jezail bullet through it some time before, and though it did not
prevent me from walking it ached wearily at every change of the
weather.
  "My practice has extended recently to the Continent," said Holmes
after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. "I was consulted
last week by Francois le Villard, who, as you probably know, has
come rather to the front lately in the French detective service. He
has all the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in
the wide range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher
developments of his art. The case was concerned with a will and
possessed some features of interest. I was able to refer him to two
parallel cases, the one at Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis in
1871, which have suggested to him the true solution. Here is the
letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance."
  He tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign
notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of
admiration, with stray magnifiques, coup-de-maitres and
tours-de-force, all testifying to the ardent admiration of the
Frenchman.
  "He speaks as a pupil to his master," said I.
  "Oh, he rates my assistance too highly," said Sherlock Holmes
lightly. "He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of
the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the
power of observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in
knowledge, and that may come in time. He is now translating my small
works into French."
  "Your works?"
  "Oh, didn't you know?" he cried, laughing. "Yes, I have been
guilty of several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects.
Here, for example, is one `Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of
the Various Tobaccos.' In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms
of cigar, cigarette, and pipe tobacco, with coloured plates
illustrating the difference in the ash. It is a point which is
continually turning up in criminal trials, and which is sometimes of
supreme importance as a clue. If you can say definitely, for
example, that some murder had been done by a man who was smoking an
Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows your field of search. To the
trained eye there is as much difference between the black ash of a
Trichinopoly and the white fluff of bird's-eye as there is between a
cabbage and a potato."
  "You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae," I remarked.
  "I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the
tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of
Paris as a preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious little work
upon the influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with
lithotypes of the hands of slaters, sailors, cork-cutters,
compositors, weavers, and diamond-polishers. That is a matter of great
practical interest to the scientific detective- especially in cases of
unclaimed bodies, or in discovering the antecedents of criminals.
But I weary you with my hobby."
  "Not at all," I answered earnestly. "It is of the greatest
interest to me, especially since I have had the opportunity of
observing your practical application of it. But you spoke just now
of observation and deduction. Surely the one to some extent implies
the other."
  "Why, hardly," he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his armchair
and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. "For example,
observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street
Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there
you dispatched a telegram."
  "Right!" said I. "Right on both points! But I confess that I don't
see how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I
have mentioned it to no one."
  "It is simplicity itself," he remarked, chuckling at my surprise-
"so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may
serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction.
Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mould adhering
to your instep. Just opposite the Wigmore Street Office they have
taken up the pavement and thrown up some earth, which lies in such a
way that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering. The
earth is of this peculiar reddish tint which is found, as far as I
know, nowhere else in the neighbourhood. So much is observation. The
rest is deduction."
  "How, then, did you deduce the telegram?"
  "Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I
sat opposite to you all morning. I see also in your open desk there
that you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of postcards.
What could you go into the post-office for, then, but to send a
wire? Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be
the truth."
  "In this case it certainly is so," I replied after a little thought.
"The thing however, is, as you say, of the simplest. Would you think
me impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe test?"
  "On the contrary," he answered, "it would prevent me from taking a
second dose of cocaine. I should be delighted to look into any problem
which you might submit to me."
  "I have heard you say it is difficult for a man to have any object
in daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality upon
it in such a way that a trained observer might read it. Now, I have
here a watch which has recently come into my possession. Would you
have the kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or
habits of the late owner?"
  I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in
my heart, for the test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I
intended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he
occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard at
the dial, opened the back, and examined the works, first with his
naked eyes and then with a powerful convex lens. I could hardly keep
from smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the
case to and handed it back.
  "There are hardly any data," he remarked. "The watch has been
recently cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts."
  "You are right," I answered. "It was cleaned before being sent to
me."
  In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward a most lame
and impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data could he expect
from an uncleaned watch?
  "Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren,"
he observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lack-lustre
eyes. "Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch
belonged to your elder brother, who inherited it from your father."
  "That you gather, no doubt, from the H.W. upon the back?"
  "Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch is
nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch:
so it was made for the last generation. jewellery usually descends
to the eldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as
the father. Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many
years. It has, therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother."
  "Right, so far," said I. "Anything else?"
  "He was a man of untidy habits- very untidy and careless. He was
left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for
some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity,
and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather."
  I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with
considerable bitterness in my heart.
  "This is unworthy of you, Holmes," I said. "I could not have
believed that you would have descended to this. You have made
inquiries into the history of my unhappy brother, and you now
pretend to deduce this knowledge in some fanciful way. You cannot
expect me to believe that you have read all this from his old watch!
It is unkind and, to speak plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in
it."
  "My dear doctor," said he kindly, "pray accept my apologies. Viewing
the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and
painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, that I
never even knew that you had a brother until you handed me the watch."
  "Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these
facts? They are absolutely correct in every particular."
  "Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of
probability. I did not at all expect to be so accurate."
  "But it was not mere guesswork?"
  "No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit- destructive to the
logical faculty. What seems strange to you is only so because you do
not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which
large inferences may depend. For example, I began by stating that your
brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of that
watch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places but
it is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard
objects, such as coins or keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no
great feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so
cavalierly must be a careless man. Neither is it a very far-fetched
inference that a man who inherits one article of such value is
pretty well provided for in other respects."
  I nodded to show that I followed his reasoning.
  "It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a
watch, to scratch the numbers of the ticket with a pin-point upon
the inside of the case. It is more handy than a label as there is no
risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than
four such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case.
Inference- that your brother was often at low water. Secondary
inference- that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could
not have redeemed the pledge. Finally, I ask you to look at the
inner plate, which contains the keyhole. Look at the thousands of
scratches all round the hole- marks where the key has slipped. What
sober man's key could have scored those grooves? But you will never
see a drunkard's watch without them. He winds it at night, and he
leaves these traces of his unsteady hand. Where is the mystery in
all this?"
  "It is as clear as daylight," I answered. "I regret the injustice
which I did you. I should have had more faith in your marvellous
faculty. May I ask whether you have any professional inquiry on foot
at present?"
  "None. Hence the cocaine. I cannot live without brainwork. What else
is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a
dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down
the street and drifts across the duncoloured houses. What could be
more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having
powers, Doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?
Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities
save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth."
  I had opened my mouth to reply to this tirade when, with a crisp
knock, our landlady entered, bearing a card upon the brass salver.
  "A young lady for you, sir," she said, addressing my companion.
  "Miss Mary Morstan," he read. "Hum! I have no recollection of the
name. Ask the young lady to step up, Mrs. Hudson. Don't go, Doctor.
I should prefer that you remain."
CH2
                         Chapter 2
                THE STATEMENT OF THE CASE

  Miss Morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward
composure of manner. She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty,
well gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. There was,
however, a plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore
with it a suggestion of limited means. The dress was a sombre
grayish beige, untrimmed and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of
the same dull hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in
the side. Her face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of
complexion, but her expression was sweet and amiable, and her large
blue eyes were singularly spiritual and sympathetic. In an
experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate
continents, I have never looked upon a face which gave a clearer
promise of a refined and sensitive nature. I could not but observe
that as she took the seat which Sherlock Holmes placed for her, her
lip trembled, her hand quivered, and she showed every sign of
intense inward agitation.
  "I have come to you, Mr. Holmes," she said, "because you once
enabled my employer, Mrs. Cecil Forrester, to unravel a little
domestic complication. She was much impressed by your kindness and
skill."
  "Mrs. Cecil Forrester," he repeated thoughtfully. "I believe that
I was of some slight service to her. The case, however, as I
remember it, was a very simple one."
  "She did not think so. But at least you cannot say the same of mine.
I can hardly imagine anything more strange, more utterly inexplicable,
than the situation in which I find myself."
  Holmes rubbed his hands, and his eyes glistened. He leaned forward
in his chair with an expression of extraordinary concentration upon
his clear-cut, hawk-like features.
  "State your case," said he in brisk business tones.
  I felt that my position was an embarrassing one.
  "You will, I am sure, excuse me," I said, rising from my chair.
  To my surprise, the young lady held up her gloved hand to detain me.
  "If your friend," she said, "would be good enough to stop, he
might be of inestimable service to me."
  I relapsed into my chair.
  "Briefly," she continued, "the facts are these. My father was an
officer in an Indian regiment, who sent me home when I was quite a
child. My mother was dead, and I had no relative in England. I was
placed, however, in a comfortable boarding establishment at Edinburgh,
and there I remained until I was seventeen years of age. In the year
1878 my father, who was senior captain of his regiment, obtained
twelve months' leave and came home. He telegraphed to me from London
that he had arrived all safe and directed me to come down at once,
giving the Langham Hotel as his address. His message, as I remember,
was full of kindness and love. On reaching London I drove to the
Langham and was informed that Captain Morstan was staying there, but
that he had gone out the night before and had not returned. I waited
all day without news of him. That night, on the advice of the
manager of the hotel, I communicated with the police, and next morning
we advertised in all the papers. Our inquiries led to no result; and
from that day to this no word has ever been heard of my unfortunate
father. He came home with his heart full of hope to find some peace,
some comfort, and instead-"
  She put her hand to her throat, and a choking sob cut short the
sentence.
  "The date?" asked Holmes, opening his notebook.
  "He disappeared upon the third of December, 1878- nearly ten years
ago."
  "His luggage?"
  "Remained at the hotel. There was nothing in it to suggest a clue-
some clothes, some books, and a considerable number of curiosities
from the Andaman Islands. He had been one of the officers in charge of
the convict-guard there."
  "Had he any friends in town?"
  "Only one that we know of- Major Sholto, of his own regiment, the
Thirty fourth Bombay Infantry. The major had retired some little
time before and lived at Upper Norwood. We communicated with him, of
course, but he did not even know that his brother officer was in
England."
  "A singular case," remarked Holmes.
  "I have not yet described to you the most singular part. About six
years ago- to be exact, upon the fourth of May, 1882- an advertisement
appeared in the Times asking for the address of Miss Mary Morstan, and
stating that it would be to her advantage to come forward. There was
no name or address appended. I had at that time just entered the
family of Mrs, Cecil Forrester in the capacity of governess. By her
advice I published my address in the advertisement column. The same
day there arrived through the post a small cardboard box addressed
to me, which I found to contain a very large and lustrous pearl. No
word of writing was enclosed. Since then every year upon the same date
there has always appeared a similar box, containing a similar pearl,
without any clue as to the sender. They have been pronounced by an
expert to be of a rare variety and of considerable value. You can
see for yourself that they are very handsome."
  She opened a flat box as she spoke and showed me six of the finest
pearls that I had ever seen.
  "Your statement is most interesting," said Sherlock Holmes. "Has
anything else occurred to you?"
  "Yes, and no later than to-day. That is why I have come to you. This
morning I received this letter, which you will perhaps read for
yourself."
  "Thank you," said Holmes. "The envelope, too, please. Post-mark,
London, S.W. Date, July 7. Hum! Man's thumb-mark on corner- probably
postman. Best quality paper. Envelopes at sixpence a packet.
Particular man in his stationery. No address.

  Be at the third pillar from the left outside the Lyceum Theatre
to-night at seven o'clock. If you are distrustful bring two friends.
You are a wronged woman and shall have justice. Do not bring police.
If you do, all will be in vain. Your unknown friend.

Well, really, this is a very pretty little mystery! What do you intend
to do, Miss Morstan?"
  "That is exactly what I want to ask you."
  "Then we shall most certainly go- you and I and- yes, why Dr. Watson
is the very man. Your correspondent says two friends. He and I have
worked together before."
  "But would he come?" she asked with something appealing in her voice
and expression.
  "I shall be proud and happy," said I fervently, "if I can be of
any service."
  "You are both very kind," she answered. "I have led a retired life
and have no friends whom I could appeal to. If I am here at six it
will do, I suppose?"
  "You must not be later," said Holmes. "There is one other point,
however. Is this handwriting the same as that upon the pearl-box
addresses?"
  "I have them here," she answered, producing half a dozen pieces of
paper.
  "You are certainly a model client. You have the correct intuition.
Let us see, now." He spread out the papers upon the table and gave
little darting glances from one to the other. "They are disguised
hands, except the letter," he said presently; "but there can be no
question as to the authorship. See how the irrepressible Greek e
will break out, and see the twirl of the final s. They are undoubtedly
by the same person. I should not like to suggest false hopes, Miss
Morstan, but is there any resemblance between this hand and that of
your father?"
  "Nothing could be more unlike."
  "I expected to hear you say so. We shall look out for you, then,
at six. Pray allow me to keep the papers, I may look into the matter
before then. It is only half-past three. Au revoir, then."
  "Au revoir," said our visitor; and with a bright, kindly glance from
one to the other of us, she replaced her pearl-box in her bosom and
hurried away.
  Standing at the window, I watched her walking briskly down the
street until the gray turban and white feather were but a speck in the
sombre crowd.
  "What a very attractive woman!" I exclaimed, turning to my
companion.
  He had lit his pipe again and was leaning back with drooping
eyelids. "Is she?" he said languidly, "I did not observe."
  "You really are an automaton- a calculating machine," I cried.
"There is something positively inhuman in you at times."
  He smiled gently.
  "It is of the first importance," he cried, "not to allow your
judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a
mere unit, a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are
antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning
woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for
their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance
is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon
the London poor."
  "In this case, however-"
  "I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule. Have
you ever had occasion to study character in handwriting? What do you
make of this fellow's scribble?"
  "It is legible and regular," I answered. "A man of business habits
and some force of character."
  Holmes shook his head.
  "Look at his long letters," he said. "They hardly rise above the
common herd. That d might be an a, and that l an e. Men of character
always differentiate their long letters, however illegibly they may
write. There is vacillation in his k's and self-esteem in his
capitals. I am going out now. I have some few references to make.
Let me recommend this book- one of the most remarkable ever penned. It
is Winwood Reade's Martyrdom of Man. I shall be back in an hour."
  I sat in the window with the volume in my hand, but my thoughts were
far from the daring speculations of the writer. My mind ran upon our
late visitor- her smiles, the deep rich tones of her voice, the
strange mystery which overhung her life. If she were seventeen at
the time of her father's disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty
now- a sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and
become a little sobered by experience. So I sat and mused until such
dangerous thoughts came into my head that I hurried away to my desk
and plunged furiously into the latest treatise upon pathology. What
was I, an army surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker banking account,
that I should dare to think of such things? She was a unit, a
factor- nothing more. If my future were black, it was better surely to
face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere
will-o'-the-wisps of the imagination.
CH3
                          Chapter 3
                   IN QUEST OF A SOLUTION

  It was half-past five before Holmes returned. He was bright,
eager, and in excellent spirits, a mood which in his case alternated
with fits of the blackest depression.
  "There is no great mystery in this matter," he said, taking the
cup of tea which I had poured out for him; "the facts appear to
admit of only one explanation."
  "What! you have solved it already?"
  "Well, that would be too much to say. I have discovered a suggestive
fact, that is all. It is, however, very suggestive. The details are
still to be added. I have just found, on consulting the back files
of the Times, that Major Sholto, of Upper Norwood, late of the
Thirty-fourth Bombay Infantry, died upon the twenty-eighth of April,
1882."
  "I may be very obtuse, Holmes, but I fail to see what this
suggests."
  "No? You surprise me. Look at it in this way, then. Captain
Morstan disappears. The only person in London whom he could have
visited is Major Sholto. Major Sholto denies having heard that he
was in London. Four years later Sholto dies. Within a week of his
death Captain Morstan's daughter receives a valuable present, which is
repeated from year to year and now culminates in a letter which
describes her as a wronged woman. What wrong can it refer to except
this deprivation of her father? And why should the presents begin
immediately after Sholto's death unless it is that Sholto's heir knows
something of the mystery and desires to make compensation? Have you
any alternative theory which will meet the facts?"
  "But what a strange compensation! And how strangely made! Why,
too, should he write a letter now, rather than six years ago? Again,
the letter speaks of giving her justice. What justice can she have? It
is too much to suppose that her father is still alive. There is no
other injustice in her case that you know of."
  "There are difficulties; there are certainly difficulties," said
Sherlock Holmes pensively; "but our expedition of to-night will
solve them all. Ah, here is a four-wheeler, and Miss Morstan is
inside. Are you all ready? Then we had better go down, for it is a
little past the hour."
  I picked up my hat and my heaviest stick, but I observed that Holmes
took his revolver from his drawer and slipped it into his pocket. It
was clear that he thought that our night's work might be a serious
one.
  Miss Morstan was muffled in a dark cloak, and her sensitive face was
composed but pale. She must have been more than woman if she did not
feel some uneasiness at the strange enterprise upon which we were
embarking, yet her self-control was perfect, and she readily
answered the few additional questions which Sherlock Holmes put to
her.
  "Major Sholto was a very particular friend of Papa's," she said.
"His letters were full of allusions to the major. He and Papa were
in command of the troops at the Andaman Islands, so they were thrown a
great deal together. By the way, a curious paper was found in Papa's
desk which no one could understand. I don't suppose that it is of
the slightest importance, but I thought you might care to see it, so I
brought it with me. It is here."
  Holmes unfolded the paper carefully and smoothed it out upon his
knee. He then very methodically examined it all over with his double
lens.
  "It is paper of native Indian manufacture," he remarked. "It has
at some time been pinned to a board. The diagram upon it appears to be
a plan of part of a large building with numerous halls, corridors, and
passages. At one point is a small cross done in red ink, and above
it is `3.37 from left,' in faded pencil-writing. In the left-hand
corner is a curious hieroglyphic like four crosses in a line with
their arms touching. Beside it is written, in very rough and coarse
characters, `The sign of the four- Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh,
Abdullah Khan, Dost Akbar.' No, I confess that I do not see how this
bears upon the matter. Yet it is evidently a document of importance.
It has been kept carefully in a pocketbook, for the one side is as
clean as the other."
  "It was in his pocketbook that we found it."
  "Preserve it carefully, then, Miss Morstan, for it may prove to be
of use to us. I begin to suspect that this matter may turn out to be
much deeper and more subtle than I at first supposed. I must
reconsider my ideas."
  He leaned back in the cab, and I could see by his drawn brow and his
vacant eye that he was thinking intently. Miss Morstan and I chatted
in an undertone about our present expedition and its possible outcome,
but our companion maintained his impenetrable reserve until the end of
our journey.
  It was a September evening and not yet seven o'clock, but the day
had been a dreary one, and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the
great city. Mud-coloured clouds drooped sadly over the muddy
streets. Down the Strand the lamps were but misty splotches of
diffused light which threw a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy
pavement. The yellow glare from the shop-windows streamed out into the
steamy, vaporous air and threw a murky, shifting radiance across the
crowded thoroughfare. There was, to my mind, something eerie and
ghostlike in the endless procession of faces which flitted across
these narrow bars of light- sad faces and glad, haggard and merry.
Like all humankind, they flitted from the gloom into the light and
so back into the gloom once more. I am not subject to impressions, but
the dull, heavy evening, with the strange business upon which we
were engaged, combined to make me nervous and depressed. I could see
from Miss Morstan's manner that she was suffering from the same
feeling. Holmes alone could rise superior to petty influences. He held
his open notebook upon his knee, and from time to time he jotted
down figures and memoranda in the light of his pocket-lantern.
  At the Lyceum Theatre the crowds were already thick at the
side-entrances. In front a continuous stream of hansoms and
four-wheelers were rattling up, discharging their cargoes of
shirt-fronted men and beshawled, bediamonded women. We had hardly
reached the third pillar, which was our rendezvous, before a small,
dark, brisk man in the dress of a coachman accosted us.
  "Are you the parties who come with Miss Morstan?" he asked.
  "I am Miss Morstan, and these two gentlemen are my friends," said
she.
  He bent a pair of wonderfully penetrating and questioning eyes
upon us.
  "You will excuse me, miss," he said with a certain dogged manner,
"but I was to ask you to give me your word that neither of your
companions is a police-officer."
  "I give you my word on that," she answered.
  He gave a shrill whistle, on which a street Arab led across a
four-wheeler and opened the door. The man who had addressed us mounted
to the box, while we took our places inside. We had hardly done so
before the driver whipped up his horse, and we plunged away at a
furious pace through the foggy streets.
  The situation was a curious one. We were driving to an unknown
place, on an unknown errand. Yet our invitation was either a
complete hoax- which was an inconceivable hypothesis- or else we had
good reason to think that important issues might hang upon our
journey. Miss Morstan's demeanour was as resolute and collected as
ever. I endeavoured to cheer and amuse her by reminiscences of my
adventures in Afghanistan; but, to tell the truth, I was myself so
excited at our situation and so curious as to our destination that
my stories were slightly involved. To this day she declares that I
told her one moving anecdote as to how a musket looked into my tent at
the dead of night, and how I fired a double-barrelled tiger cub at it.
At first I had some idea as to the direction in which we were driving,
but soon, what with our pace, the fog, and my own limited knowledge of
London, I lost my bearings and knew nothing save that we seemed to
be going a very long way. Sherlock Holmes was never at fault, however,
and he muttered the names as the cab rattled through squares and in
and out by tortuous by-streets.
  "Rochester Row," said he. "Now Vincent Square. Now we come out on
the Vauxhall Bridge Road. We are making for the Surrey side
apparently. Yes, I thought so. Now we are on the bridge. You can catch
glimpses of the river."
  We did indeed get a fleeting view of a stretch of the Thames, with
the lamps shining upon the broad, silent water; but our cab dashed
on and was soon involved in a labyrinth of streets upon the other
side.
  "Wordsworth Road," said my companion. "Priory Road. Lark Hall
Lane. Stockwell Place. Robert Street. Cold Harbour Lane. Our quest
does not appear to take us to very fashionable regions."
  We had indeed reached a questionable and forbidding neighbourhood.
Long lines of dull brick houses were only relieved by the coarse glare
and tawdry brilliancy of public-houses at the corner. Then came rows
of two-storied villas, each with a fronting of miniature garden, and
then again interminable lines of new, staring brick buildings- the
monster tentacles which the giant city was throwing out into the
country. At last the cab drew up at the third house in a new
terrace. None of the other houses were inhabited, and that at which we
stopped was as dark as its neighbours, save for a single glimmer in
the kitchen-window. On our knocking, however, the door was instantly
thrown open by a Hindoo servant, clad in a yellow turban, white
loose-fitting clothes, and a yellow sash. There was something
strangely incongruous in this Oriental figure framed in the
commonplace doorway of a third-rate suburban dwelling-house.
  "The sahib awaits you," said he, and even as he spoke, there came
a high, piping voice from some inner room.
  "Show them in to me, khitmutgar," it said. "Show them straight in to
me."
CH4
                        Chapter 4
             THE STORY OF THE BALD-HEADED MAN

  We followed the Indian down a sordid and common passage, ill-lit and
worse furnished, until he came to a door upon the right, which he
threw open. A blaze of yellow light streamed out upon us, and in the
centre of the glare there stood a small man with a very high head, a
bristle of red hair all round the fringe of it, and a bald, shining
scalp which shot out from among it like a mountain-peak from
fir-trees. He writhed his hands together as he stood, and his features
were in a perpetual jerk- now smiling, now scowling, but never for
an instant in repose. Nature had given him a pendulous lip, and a
too visible line of yellow and irregular teeth, which he strove feebly
to conceal by constantly passing his hand over the lower part of his
face. In spite of his obtrusive baldness he gave the impression of
youth. In point of fact, he had just turned his thirtieth year.
  "Your servant, Miss Morstan," he kept repeating in a thin, high
voice. "Your servant, gentlemen. Pray step into my little sanctum. A
small place, miss, but furnished to my own liking. An oasis of art
in the howling desert of South London."
  We were all astonished by the appearance of the apartment into which
he invited us. In that sorry house it looked as out of place as a
diamond of the first water in a setting of brass. The richest and
glossiest of curtains and tapestries draped the walls, looped back
here and there to expose some richly mounted painting or Oriental
vase. The carpet was of amber and black, so soft and so thick that the
foot sank pleasantly into it, as into a bed of moss. Two great
tiger-skins thrown athwart it increased the suggestion of Eastern
luxury, as did a huge hookah which stood upon a mat in the corner. A
lamp in the fashion of a silver dove was hung from an almost invisible
golden wire in the centre of the room. As it burned it filled the
air with a subtle and aromatic odour.
  "Mr. Thaddeus Sholto," said the little man, still jerking and
smiling. "That is my name. You are Miss Morstan, of course. And
these gentlemen-"
  "This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and this Dr. Watson."
  "A doctor, eh?" cried he, much excited. "Have you your
stethoscope? Might I ask you- would you have the kindness? I have
grave doubts as to my mitral valve, if you would be so very good.
The aortic I may rely upon, but I should value your opinion upon the
mitral."
  I listened to his heart, as requested, but was unable to find
anything amiss, save, indeed, that he was in an ecstasy of fear, for
he shivered from head to foot.
  "It appears to be normal," I said. "You have no cause for
uneasiness."
  "You will excuse my anxiety, Miss Morstan," he remarked airily. "I
am a great sufferer, and I have long had suspicions as to that
valve. I am delighted to hear that they are unwarranted. Had your
father, Miss Morstan, refrained from throwing a strain upon his heart,
he might have been alive now."
  I could have struck the man across the face, so hot was I at this
callous and offhand reference to so delicate a matter. Miss Morstan
sat down, and her face grew white to the lips.
  "I knew in my heart that he was dead," said she.
  "I can give you every information," said he; "and, what is more, I
can do you justice; and I will, too, whatever Brother Bartholomew
may say. I am so glad to have your friends here not only as an
escort to you but also as witnesses to what I am about to do and
say. The three of us can show a bold front to Brother Bartholomew. But
let us have no outsiders- no police or officials. We can settle
everything satisfactorily among ourselves without any interference.
Nothing would annoy Brother Bartholomew more than any publicity."
  He sat down upon a low settee and blinked at us inquiringly with his
weak, watery blue eyes.
  "For my part," said Holmes, "whatever you may choose to say will
go no further."
  I nodded to show my agreement.
  "That is well! That is well!" said he. "May I offer you a glass of
Chianti, Miss Morstan? Or of Tokay? I keep no other wines. Shall I
open a flask? No? Well, then, I trust that you have no objection to
tobacco-smoke, to the balsamic odour of the Eastern tobacco. I am a
little nervous, and I find my hookah an invaluable sedative."
  He applied a taper to the great bowl, and the smoke bubbled
merrily through the rose-water. We sat all three in a semicircle, with
our heads advanced and our chins upon our hands, while the strange,
jerky little fellow, with his high, shining head, puffed uneasily in
the centre.
  "When I first determined to make this communication to you," said
he, "I might have given you my address; but I feared that you might
disregard my request and bring unpleasant people with you. I took
the liberty, therefore, of making an appointment in such a way that my
man Williams might be able to see you first. I have complete
confidence in his discretion, and he had orders, if he were
dissatisfied, to proceed no further in the matter. You will excuse
these precautions, but I am a man of somewhat retiring, and I might
even say refined, tastes, and there is nothing more unaesthetic than a
policeman. I have a natural shrinking from all forms of rough
materialism. I seldom come in contact with the rough crowd. I live, as
you see, with some little atmosphere of elegance around me. I may call
myself a patron of the arts. It is my weakness. The landscape is a
genuine Corot, and though a connoisseur might perhaps throw a doubt
upon that Salvator Rosa, there cannot be the least question about
the Bouguereau. I am partial to the modern French school."
  "You will excuse me, Mr. Sholto," said Miss Morstan, "but I am
here at your request to learn something which you desire to tell me.
It is very late, and I should desire the interview to be as short as
possible."
  "At the best it must take some time," he answered; "for we shall
certainly have to go to Norwood and see Brother Bartholomew. We
shall all go and try if we can get the better of Brother
Bartholomew. He is very angry with me for taking the course which
has seemed right to me. I had quite high words with him last night.
You cannot imagine what a terrible fellow he is when he is angry."
  "If we are to go to Norwood, it would perhaps be as well to start at
once," I ventured to remark.
  He laughed until his ears were quite red.
  "That would hardly do," he cried. "I don't know what he would say if
I brought you in that sudden way. No, I must prepare you by showing
you how we all stand to each other. In the first place, I must tell
you that there are several points in the story of which I am myself
ignorant. I can only lay the facts before you as far as I know them
myself.
  "My father was, as you may have guessed, Major John Sholto, once
of the Indian Army. He retired some eleven years ago and came to
live at Pondicherry Lodge in Upper Norwood. He had prospered in
India and brought back with him a considerable sum of money, a large
collection of valuable curiosities, and a staff of native servants.
With these advantages he bought himself a house, and rived in great
luxury. My twin-brother Bartholomew and I were the only children.
  "I very well remember the sensation which was caused by the
disappearance of Captain Morstan. We read the details in the papers,
and knowing that he had been a friend of our father's we discussed the
case freely in his presence. He used to join in our speculations as to
what could have happened. Never for an instant did we suspect that
he had the whole secret hidden in his own breast, that of all men he
alone knew the fate of Arthur Morstan.
  "We did know, however, that some mystery, some positive danger,
overhung our father. He was very fearful of going out alone, and he
always employed two prize-fighters to act as porters at Pondicherry
Lodge. Williams, who drove you tonight, was one of them. He was once
lightweight champion of England. Our father would never tell us what
it was he feared, but he had a most marked aversion to men with wooden
legs. On one occasion he actually fired his revolver at a wooden
legged man, who proved to be a harmless tradesman canvassing for
orders. We had to pay a large sum to hush the matter up. My brother
and I used to think this a mere whim of my father's, but events have
since led us to change our opinion.
  "Early in 1882 my father received a letter from India which was a
great shock to him. He nearly fainted at the breakfast-table when he
opened it, and from that day he sickened to his death. What was in the
letter we could never discover, but I could see as he held it that
it was short and written in a scrawling hand. He had suffered for
years from an enlarged spleen, but he now became rapidly worse, and
towards the end of April we were informed that he was beyond all hope,
and that he wished to make a last communication to us.
  "When we entered his room he was propped up with pillows and
breathing heavily. He besought us to lock the door and to come upon
either side of the bed. Then grasping our hands he made a remarkable
statement to us in a voice which was broken as much by emotion as by
pain. I shall try and give it to you in his own very words.
  "`I have only one thing,' he said, `which weighs upon my mind at
this supreme moment. It is my treatment of poor Morstan's orphan.
The cursed greed which has been my besetting sin through life has
withheld from her the treasure, half at least of which should have
been hers. And yet I have made no use of it myself, so blind and
foolish a thing is avarice. The mere feeling of possession has been so
dear to me that I could not bear to share it with another. See that
chaplet tipped with pearls beside the quinine-bottle. Even that I
could not bear to part with, although I had got it out with the design
of sending it to her. You, my sons, will give her a fair share of
the Agra treasure. But send her nothing- not even the chaplet- until I
am gone. After all, men have been as bad as this and have recovered.
  "`I will tell you how Morstan died,' he continued. `He had
suffered for years from a weak heart, but he concealed it from every
one. I alone knew it. When in India, he and I, through a remarkable
chain of circumstances, came into possession of a considerable
treasure. I brought it over to England, and on the night of
Morstan's arrival he came straight over here to claim his share. He
walked over from the station and was admitted by my faithful old Lal
Chowdar, who is now dead. Morstan and I had a difference of opinion as
to the division of the treasure, and we came to heated words.
Morstan had sprung out of his chair in a paroxysm of anger, when he
suddenly pressed his hand to his side, his face turned a dusky hue,
and he fell backward, cutting his head against the corner of the
treasure chest. When I stooped over him I found, to my horror, that he
was dead.
  "`For a long time I sat half distracted, wondering what I should do.
My first impulse was, of course, to call for assistance; but I could
not but recognize that there was every chance that I would be
accused of his murder. His death at the moment of a quarrel, and the
gash in his head, would be black against me. Again, an official
inquiry could not be made without bringing out some facts about the
treasure, which I was particularly anxious to keep secret. He had told
me that no soul upon earth knew where he had gone. There seemed to
be no necessity why any soul ever should know.
  "`I was still pondering over the matter, when, looking up, I saw
my servant, Lal Chowdar, in the doorway. He stole in and bolted the
door behind him. "Do not fear, sahib," he said; "no one need know that
you have killed him. Let us hide him away, and who is the wiser?" "I
did not kill him," said I. Lal Chowdar shook his head and smiled. "I
heard it all, sahib," said he; "I heard you quarrel, and I heard the
blow. But my lips are sealed. All are asleep in the house. Let us
put him away together." That was enough to decide me. If my own
servant could not believe my innocence, how could I hope to make it
good before twelve foolish tradesmen in a jury-box? Lal Chowdar and
I disposed of the body that night, and within a few days the London
papers were full of the mysterious disappearance of Captain Morstan.
You will see from what I say that I can hardly be blamed in the
matter. My fault lies in the fact that we concealed not only the
body but also the treasure and that I have clung to Morstan's share as
well as to my own. I wish you, therefore, to make restitution. Put
your ears down to my mouth. The treasure is hidden in-'
  "At this instant a horrible change came over his expression; his
eyes stared wildly, his jaw dropped, and he yelled in a voice which
I can never forget, `Keep him out! For Christ's sake keep him out!' We
both stared round at the window behind us upon which his gaze was
fixed. A face was looking in at us out of the darkness. We could see
the whitening of the nose where it was pressed against the glass. It
was a bearded, hairy face, with wild cruel eyes and an expression of
concentrated malevolence. My brother and I rushed towards the
window, but the man was gone. When we returned to my father his head
had dropped and his pulse had ceased to beat.
  "We searched the garden that night but found no sign of the intruder
save that just under the window a single footmark was visible in the
flower-bed. But for that one trace, we might have thought that our
imaginations had conjured up that wild, fierce face. We soon, however,
had another and a more striking proof that there were secret
agencies at work all round us. The window of my father's room was
found open in the morning, his cupboards and boxes had been rifled,
and upon his chest was fixed a torn piece of paper with the words `The
sign of the four' scrawled across it. What the phrase meant or who our
secret visitor may have been, we never knew. As far as we can none
of my father's property had been actually stolen, though everything
had been turned out. My brother and I naturally associated this
peculiar incident with the fear which haunted my father during his
life, but it is still a complete mystery to us."
  The little man stopped to relight his hookah and puffed thoughtfully
for a few moments. We had all sat absorbed, listening to his
extraordinary narrative. At the short account of her father's death
Miss Morstan had turned deadly white, and for a moment I feared that
she was about to faint. She rallied, however, on drinking a glass of
water which I quietly poured out for her from a Venetian carafe upon
the side-table. Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair with an
abstracted expression and the lids drawn low over his glittering eyes.
As I glanced at him I could not but think how on that very day he
had complained bitterly of the commonplaceness of life. Here at
least was a problem which would tax his sagacity to the utmost. Mr.
Thaddeus Sholto looked from one to the other of us with an obvious
pride at the effect which his story had produced and then continued
between the puffs of his overgrown pipe.
  "My brother and I," said he, "were, as you may imagine, much excited
as to the treasure which my father had spoken of. For weeks and for
months we dug and delved in every part of the garden without
discovering its whereabouts. It was maddening to think that the
hiding-place was on his very lips at the moment that he died. We could
judge the splendour of the missing riches by the chaplet which he
had taken out. Over this chaplet my brother Bartholomew and I had some
little discussion. The pearls were evidently of great value, and he
was averse to part with them, for, between friends, my brother was
himself a little inclined to my father's fault. He thought, too,
that if we parted with the chaplet it might give rise to gossip and
finally bring us into trouble. It was all that I could do to
persuade him to let me find out Miss Morstan's address and send her
a detached pearl at fixed intervals so that at least she might never
feel destitute."
  "It was a kindly thought," said our companion earnestly, "it was
extremely good of you."
  The little man waved his hand deprecatingly.
  "We were your trustees," he said; "that was the view which I took of
it, though Brother Bartholomew could not altogether see it in that
light. We had plenty of money ourselves. I desired no more. Besides,
it would have been such bad taste to have treated a young lady in so
scurvy a fashion. `Le mauvais gout mene au crime.' The French have a
very neat way of putting these things. Our difference of opinion on
this subject went so far that I thought it best to set up rooms for
myself; so I left Pondicherry Lodge, taking the old khitmutgar and
Williams with me. Yesterday, however, I learned that an event of
extreme importance has occurred. The treasure has been discovered. I
instantly communicated with Miss Morstan, and it only remains for us
to drive out to Norwood and demand our share. I explained my views
last night to Brother Bartholomew, so we shall be expected, if not
welcome, visitors."
  Mr. Thaddeus Sholto ceased and sat twitching on his luxurious
settee. We all remained silent, with our thoughts upon the new
development which the mysterious business had taken. Holmes was the
first to spring to his feet.
  "You have done well, sir, from first to last," said he. "It is
possible that we may be able to make you some small return by throwing
some light upon that which is still dark to you. But, as Miss
Morstan remarked just now, it is late, and we had best put the
matter through without delay."
  Our new acquaintance very deliberately coiled up the tube of his
hookah and produced from behind a curtain a very long befrogged
topcoat with astrakhan collar and cuffs. This he buttoned tightly up
in spite of the extreme closeness of the night and finished his attire
by putting on a rabbit-skin cap with hanging lappets which covered the
ears, so that no part of him was visible save his mobile and peaky
face.
  "My health is somewhat fragile," he remarked as he led the way
down the passage. "I am compelled to be a valetudinarian."
  Our cab was awaiting us outside, and our programme was evidently
prearranged, for the driver started off at once at a rapid pace.
Thaddeus Sholto talked incessantly in a voice which rose high above
the rattle of the wheels.
  "Bartholomew is a clever fellow," said he. "How do you think he
found out where the treasure was? He had come to the conclusion that
it was somewhere indoors, so he worked out all the cubic space of
the house and made measurements everywhere so that not one inch should
be unaccounted for. Among other things, he found that the height of
the building was seventy-four feet, but on adding together the heights
of all the separate rooms and making every allowance for the space
between, which he ascertained by borings, he could not bring the total
to more than seventy feet. There were four feet unaccounted for. These
could only be at the top of the building. He knocked a hole,
therefore, in the lath and plaster ceiling of the highest room, and
there, sure enough, he came upon another little garret above it, which
had been sealed up and was known to no one. In the centre stood the
treasure-chest resting upon two rafters. He lowered it through the
hole, and there it lies. He computes the value of the jewels at not
less than half a million sterling."
  At the mention of this gigantic sum we all stared at one another
open-eyed. Miss Morstan, could we secure her rights, would change from
a needy governess to the richest heiress in England. Surely it was the
place of a loyal friend to rejoice at such news, yet I am ashamed to
say that selfishness took me by the soul and that my heart turned as
heavy as lead within me. I stammered out some few halting words of
congratulation and then sat downcast, with my head drooped, deaf to
the babble of our new acquaintance. He was clearly a confirmed
hypochondriac, and I was dreamily conscious that he was pouring
forth interminable trains of symptoms, and imploring information as to
the composition and action of innumerable quack nostrums, some of
which he bore about in a leather case in his pocket. I trust that he
may not remember any of the answers which I gave him that night.
Holmes declares that he overheard me caution him against the great
danger of taking more than two drops of castor-oil, while I
recommended strychnine in large doses as a sedative. However that
may be, I was certainly relieved when our cab pulled up with a jerk
and the coachman sprang down to open the door.
  "This, Miss Morstan, is Pondicherry Lodge," said Mr. Thaddeus Sholto
as he handed her out.
CH5
                          Chapter 5
               THE TRAGEDY OF PONDICHERRY LODGE

  It was nearly eleven o'clock when we reached this final stage of our
night's adventures. We had left the damp fog of the great city
behind us, and the night was fairly fine. A warm wind blew from the
westward, and heavy clouds moved slowly across the sky, with half a
moon peeping occasionally through the rifts. It was clear enough to
see for some distance, but Thaddeus Sholto took down one of the side
lamps from the carriage to give us a better light upon our way.
  Pondicherry Lodge stood in its own grounds and was girt round with a
very high stone wall topped with broken glass. A single narrow
iron-clamped door formed the only means of entrance. On this our guide
knocked with a peculiar postman-like rat-tat.
  Who is there?" cried a gruff voice from within.
  "It is I, McMurdo. You surely know my knock by this time."
  There was a grumbling sound and a clanking and jarring of keys.
The door swung heavily back, and a short, deep-chested man stood in
the opening, with the yellow light of the lantern shining upon his
protruded face and twinkling, distrustful eyes.
  "That you, Mr. Thaddeus? But who are the others? I had no orders
about them from the master."
  "No, McMurdo? You surprise me! I told my brother last night that I
should bring some friends."
  "He hain't been out o' his rooms to-day, Mr. Thaddeus, and I have no
orders. You know very well that I must stick to regulations. I can let
you in, but your friends they must just stop where they are."
  This was an unexpected obstacle. Thaddeus Sholto looked about him in
a perplexed and helpless manner.
  "This is too bad of you, McMurdo!" he said. "If I guarantee them,
that is enough for you. There is the young lady, too. She cannot
wait on the public road at this hour."
  "Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus," said the porter inexorably. "Folk may be
friends o' yours, and yet no friend o' the master's. He pays me well
to do my duty, and my duty I'll do. I don't know none o' your
friends."
  "Oh, yes you do, McMurdo," cried Sherlock Holmes genially. "I
don't think you can have forgotten me. Don't you remember that amateur
who fought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the night of
your benefit four years back?"
  "Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" roared the prize-fighter. "God's truth!
how could I have mistook you? If instead o' standin' there so quiet
you had just stepped up and given me that cross-hit of yours under the
jaw, I'd ha' known you without a question. Ah, you're one that has
wasted your gifts, you have! You might have aimed high, if you had
joined the fancy."
  "You see, Watson, if all else fails me, I have still one of the
scientific professions open to me," said Holmes, laughing. "Our friend
won't keep us out in the cold now, I am sure."
  "In you come, sir, in you come- you and your friends," he
answered. "Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus, but orders are very strict. Had
to be certain of your friends before I let them in."
  Inside, a gravel path wound through desolate grounds to a huge clump
of a house, square and prosaic, all plunged in shadow save where a
moonbeam struck one corner and glimmered in a garret window. The
vast size of the building, with its gloom and its deathly silence,
struck a chill to the heart. Even Thaddeus Sholto seemed ill at
ease, and the lantern quivered and rattled in his hand.
  "I cannot understand it," he said. "There must be some mistake. I
distinctly told Bartholomew that we should be here, and yet there is
no light in his window. I do not know what to make of it."
  "Does he always guard the premises in this way?" asked Holmes.
  "Yes; he has followed my father's custom. He was the favourite son
you know, and I sometimes think that my father may have told him
more than he ever told me. That is Bartholomew's window up there where
the moonshine strikes. It is quite bright, but there is no light
from within, I think."
  "None," said Holmes. "But I see the glint of a light in that
little window beside the door."
  Ah, that is the housekeeper's room. That is where old Mrs. Bernstone
sits. She can tell us all about it. But perhaps you would not mind
waiting here for a minute or two, for if we all go in together, and
she has had no word of our coming, she may be alarmed. But, hush! what
is that?"
  He held up the lantern, and his hand shook until the circles of
light flickered and wavered all round us. Miss Morstan seized my
wrist, and we all stood, with thumping hearts, straining our ears.
From the great black house there sounded through the silent night
the saddest and most pitiful of sounds- the shrill, broken
whimpering of a frightened woman.
  "It is Mrs. Bernstone," said Sholto. "She is the only woman in the
house. Wait here. I shall be back in a moment."
  He hurried for the door and knocked in his peculiar way. We could
see a tall old woman admit him and sway with pleasure at the very
sight of him.
  "Oh, Mr. Thaddeus, sir, I am so glad you have come! I am so glad you
have come, Mr. Thaddeus, sir!"
  We heard her reiterated rejoicings until the door was closed and her
voice died away into a muffled monotone.
  Our guide had left us the lantern. Holmes swung it slowly round
and peered keenly at the house and at the great rubbish-heaps which
cumbered the grounds. Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her
hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we
two, who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no
word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour
of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have
marvelled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural
thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me,
there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and
protection. So we stood hand in hand like two children, and there
was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us.
  "What a strange place!" she said, looking round.
  "It looks as though all the moles in England had been let loose in
it. I have seen something of the sort on the side of a hill near
Ballarat, where the prospectors had been at work."
  "And from the same cause," said Holmes. "These are the traces of the
treasure seekers. You must remember that they were six years looking
for it. No wonder that the grounds look like a gravel-pit."
  At that moment the door of the house burst open, and Thaddeus Sholto
came running out, with his hands thrown forward and terror in his
eyes.
  "There is something amiss with Bartholomew!" he cried. "I am
frightened! My nerves cannot stand it."
  He was, indeed, half blubbering with fear, and his twitching, feeble
face peeping out from the great astrakhan collar had the helpless,
appealing expression of a terrified child.
  "Come into the house," said Holmes in his crisp, firm way.
  "Yes, do!" pleaded Thaddeus Sholto. "I really do not feel equal to
giving directions."
  We all followed him into the housekeeper's room, which stood upon
the lefthand side of the passage. The old woman was pacing up and down
with a scared look and restless, picking fingers, but the sight of
Miss Morstan appeared to have a soothing effect upon her.
  "God bless your sweet, calm face!" she cried with a hysterical
sob. "It does me good to see you. Oh, but I have been sorely tried
this day!"
  Our companion patted her thin, work-worn hand and murmured some
few words of kindly, womanly comfort which brought the colour back
into the other's bloodless cheeks.
  "Master has locked himself in and will not answer me," she
explained. "All day I have waited to hear from him, for he often likes
to be alone; but an hour ago I feared that something was amiss, so I
went up and peeped through the keyhole. You must go up, Mr.
Thaddeus- you must go up and look for yourself. I have seen Mr.
Bartholomew Sholto in joy and in sorrow for ten long years, but I
never saw him with such a face on him as that."
  Sherlock Holmes took the lamp and led the way, for Thaddeus Sholto's
teeth were chattering in his head. So shaken was he that I had to pass
my hand under his arm as we went up the stairs, for his knees were
trembling under him. Twice as we ascended, Holmes whipped his lens out
of his pocket and carefully examined marks which appeared to me to
be mere shapeless smudges of dust upon the cocoanut-matting which
served as a stair-carpet. He walked slowly from step to step,
holding the lamp low, and shooting keen glances to right and left.
Miss Morstan had remained behind with the frightened housekeeper.
  The third flight of stairs ended in a straight passage of some
length, with a great picture in Indian tapestry upon the right of it
and three doors upon the left. Holmes advanced along it in the same
slow and methodical way, while we kept close at his heels, with our
long black shadows streaming backward down the corridor. The third
door was that which we were seeking. Holmes knocked without
receiving any answer, and then tried to turn the handle and force it
open. It was locked on the inside, however, and by a broad and
powerful bolt, as we could see when we set our lamp up against it. The
key being turned, however, the hole was not entirely closed.
Sherlock Holmes bent down to it and instantly rose again with a
sharp intaking of the breath.
  "There is something devilish in this, Watson," said he, more moved
than I had ever before seen him. "What do you make of it?"
  I stooped to the hole and recoiled in horror. Moonlight was
streaming into the room, and it was bright with a vague and shifty
radiance. Looking straight at me and suspended, as it were, in the
air, for all beneath was in shadow, there hung a face- the very face
of our companion Thaddeus. There was the same high, shining head,
the same circular bristle of red hair, the same bloodless countenance.
The features were set, however, in a horrible smile, a fixed and
unnatural grin, which in that still and moonlit room was more
jarring to the nerves than any scowl or contortion. So like was the
face to that of our little friend that I looked round at him to make
sure that he was indeed with us. Then I recalled to mind that he bad
mentioned to us that his brother and he were twins.
  "This is terrible!" I said to Holmes. "What is to be done?"
  "The door must come down," he answered, and springing against it, he
put all his weight upon the lock.
  It creaked and groaned but did not yield. Together we flung
ourselves upon it once more, and this time it gave way with a sudden
snap, and we found ourselves within Bartholomew Sholto's chamber.
  It appeared to have been fitted up as a chemical laboratory. A
double line of glass-stoppered bottles was drawn up upon the wall
opposite the door, and the table was littered over with Bunsen
burners, test-tubes, and retorts. In the corners stood carboys of acid
in wicker baskets. One of these appeared to leak or to have been
broken, for a stream of dark-coloured liquid had trickled out from it,
and the air was heavy with a peculiarly pungent, tarlike odour. A
set of steps stood at one side of the room in the midst of a litter of
lath and plaster, and above them there was an opening in the ceiling
large enough for a man to pass through. At the foot of the steps a
long coil of rope was thrown carelessly together.
  By the table in a wooden armchair the master of the house was seated
all in a heap, with his head sunk upon his left shoulder and that
ghastly, inscrutable smile upon his face. He was stiff and cold and
had clearly been dead many hours. It seemed to me that not only his
features but all his limbs were twisted and turned in the most
fantastic fashion. By his hand upon the table there lay a peculiar
instrument- a brown, close-grained stick, with a stone head like a
hammer, rudely lashed on with coarse twine. Beside it was a torn sheet
of note-paper with some words scrawled upon it. Holmes glanced at it
and then handed it to me.
  "You see," he said with a significant raising of the eyebrows.
  In the light of the lantern I read with a thrill of horror, "The
sign of the four."
  "In God's name, what does it all mean?" I asked.
  "It means murder," said he, stooping over the dead man. "Ah! I
expected it. Look here!"
  He pointed to what looked like a long dark thorn stuck in the skin
just above the ear.
  "It looks like a thorn," said I.
  "It is a thorn. You may pick it out. But be careful, for it is
poisoned."
  I took it up between my finger and thumb. It came away from the skin
so readily that hardly any mark was left behind. One tiny speck of
blood showed where the puncture had been.
  "This is all an insoluble mystery to me," said I. "It grows darker
instead of clearer."
  "On the contrary," he answered, "it clears every instant. I only
require a few missing links to have an entirely connected case."
  We had almost forgotten our companion's presence since we entered
the chamber. He was still standing in the doorway, the very picture of
terror, wringing his hands and moaning to himself. Suddenly,
however, he broke out into a sharp, querulous cry.
  "The treasure is gone!" he said. "They have robbed him of the
treasure! There is the hole through which we lowered it. I helped
him to do it! I was the last person who saw him! I left him here
last night, and I heard him lock the door as I came downstairs."
  "What time was that?"
  "It was ten o'clock. And now he is dead, and the police will be
called in, and I shall be suspected of having had a hand in it. Oh,
yes, I am sure I shall. But you don't think so, gentlemen? Surely
you don't think that it was I? Is it likely that I would have
brought you here if it were I? Oh, dear! oh, dear! I know that I shall
go mad!"
  He jerked his arms and stamped his feet in a kind of convulsive
frenzy.
  "You have no reason for fear, Mr. Sholto," said Holmes kindly,
putting his hand upon his shoulder; "take my advice and drive down
to the station to report the matter to the police. Offer to assist
them in every way. We shall wait here until your return."
  The little man obeyed in a half-stupefied fashion, and we heard
him stumbling down the stairs in the dark.
CH6
                        Chapter 6
          SHERLOCK HOLMES GIVES A DEMONSTRATION

  "Now, Watson," said Holmes, rubbing his hands, "we have half an hour
to ourselves. Let us make good use of it. My case is, as I have told
you, almost complete; but we must not err on the side of
overconfidence. Simple as the case seems now, there may be something
deeper underlying it."
  "Simple!" I ejaculated.
  "Surely," said he with something of the air of a clinical
professor expounding to his class. "Just sit in the corner there, that
your footprints may not complicate matters. Now to work! In the
first place, how did these folk come and how did they go? The door has
not been opened since last night. How of the window?" He carried the
lamp across to it, muttering his observations aloud the while but
addressing them to himself rather than to me. "Window is snibbed on
the inner side. Frame-work is solid. No hinges at the side. Let us
open it. No water-pipe near. Roof quite out of reach. Yet a man has
mounted by the window. It rained a little last night. Here is the
print of a foot in mould upon the sill. And here is a circular muddy
mark, and here again upon the floor, and here again by the table.
See here, Watson! This is really a very pretty demonstration."
  I looked at the round, well-defined muddy discs.
  "That is not a foot-mark," said I.
  "It is something much more valuable to us. It is the impression of a
wooden stump. You see here on the sill is the boot-mark, a heavy
boot with a broad metal heel, and beside it is the mark of the
timber-toe."
  "It is the wooden-legged man."
  "Quite so. But there has been someone else- a very able and
efficient ally. Could you scale that wall, Doctor?"
  I looked out of the open window. The moon still shone brightly on
that angle of the house. We were a good sixty feet from the ground,
and, look where I would, I could see no foothold, nor as much as a
crevice in the brickwork.
  "It is absolutely impossible," I answered.
  "Without aid it is so. But suppose you had a friend up here who
lowered you this good stout rope which I see in the corner, securing
one end of it to this great hook in the wall. Then, I think, if you
were an active man, you might swarm up, wooden leg and all. You
would depart, of course, in the same fashion, and your ally would draw
up the rope, untie it from the hook, shut the window, snib it on the
inside, and get away in the way that he originally came. As a minor
point, it may be noted," he continued, fingering the rope, "that our
wooden-legged friend, though a fair climber, was not a professional
sailor. His hands were far from horny. My lens discloses more than one
blood-mark, especially towards the end of the rope, from which I
gather that he slipped down with such velocity that he took the skin
off his hands."
  "This is all very well," said I; "but the thing becomes more
unintelligible than ever. How about this mysterious ally? How came
he into the room?"
  "Yes, the ally!" repeated Holmes pensively. "There are features of
interest about this ally. He lifts the case from the regions of the
commonplace. I fancy that this ally breaks fresh ground in the
annals of crime in this country- though parallel cases suggest
themselves from India and, if my memory serves me, from Senegambia."
  "How came he, then?" I reiterated. "The door is locked; the window
is inaccessible. Was it through the chimney?"
  "The grate is much too small," he answered. "I had already
considered that possibility."
  "How, then?" I persisted.
  "You will not apply my precept," he said, shaking his head. "How
often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? We know
that he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney.
We also know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as
there is no concealment possible. When, then, did he come?"
  "He came through the hole in the roof!" I cried.
  "Of course he did. He must have done so. If you will have the
kindness to hold the lamp for me, we shall now extend our researches
to the room above- the secret room in which the treasure was found."
  He mounted the steps, and, seizing a rafter with either hand, he
swung himself up into the garret. Then, lying on his face, he
reached down for the lamp and held it while I followed him.
  The chamber in which we found ourselves was about ten feet one way
and six the other. The floor was formed by the rafters, with thin lath
and plaster between, so that in walking one had to step from beam to
beam. The roof ran up to an apex and was evidently the inner shell
of the true roof of the house. There was no furniture of any sort, and
the accumulated dust of years lay thick upon the floor.
  "Here you are, you see," said Sherlock Holmes, putting his hand
against the sloping wall. "This is a trapdoor which leads out on to
the roof. I can press it back, and here is the roof itself, sloping at
a gentle angle. This, then, is the way by which Number One entered.
Let us see if we can find some other traces of his individuality?"
  He held down the lamp to the floor, and as he did so I saw for the
second time that night a startled, surprised look come over his
face. For myself, as I followed his gaze, my skin was cold under my
clothes. The floor was covered thickly with the prints of a naked
foot- clear, well-defined, perfectly formed, but scarce half the
size of those of an ordinary man.
  "Holmes," I said in a whisper, "a child has done this horrid thing."
  He had recovered his self-possession in an instant.
  "I was staggered for the moment," he said, "but the thing is quite
natural. My memory failed me, or I should have been able to foretell
it. There is nothing more to be learned here. Let us go down."
  "What is your theory, then, as to those footmarks?" I asked
eagerly when we had regained the lower room once more.
  "My dear Watson, try a little analysis yourself," said he with a
touch of impatience. "You know my methods. Apply them, and it will
be instructive to compare results."
  "I cannot conceive anything which will cover the facts," I answered.
  "It will be clear enough to you soon," he said, in an offhand way.
"I think that there is nothing else of importance here, but I will
look."
  He whipped out his lens and a tape measure and hurried about the
room on his knees, measuring, comparing, examining, with his long thin
nose only a few inches from the planks and his beady eyes gleaming and
deep-set like those of a bird. So swift, silent, and furtive were
his movements, like those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent,
that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made
had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law instead of
exerting them in its defence. As he hunted about, he kept muttering to
himself, and finally he broke out into a loud crow of delight.
  "We are certainly in luck," said he. "We ought to have very little
trouble now. Number One has had the misfortune to tread in the
creosote. You can see the outline of the edge of his small foot here
at the side of this evil-smelling mess. The carboy has been cracked,
you see, and the stuff has leaked out."
  "What then?" I asked.
  "Why, we have got him, that's all," said he.
  "I know a dog that would follow that scent to the world's end. If
a pack can track a trailed herring across a shire, how far can a
specially trained hound follow so pungent a smell as this? It sounds
like a sum in the rule of three. The answer should give us the- But
hallo! here are the accredited representatives of the law."
  Heavy steps and the clamour of loud voices were audible from
below, and the hall door shut with a loud crash.
  "Before they come," said Holmes, "just put your hand here on this
poor fellow's arm, and here on his leg. What do you feel?"
  "The muscles are as hard as a board," I answered.
  "Quite so. They are in a state of extreme contraction, far exceeding
the usual rigor mortis. Coupled with this distortion of the face, this
Hippocratic smile, or `risus sardonicus,' as the old writers called
it, what conclusion would it suggest to your mind?"
  "Death from some powerful vegetable alkaloid," I answered, "some
strychnine like substance which would produce tetanus."
  "That was the idea which occurred to me the instant I saw the
drawn muscles of the face. On getting into the room I at once looked
for the means by which the poison had entered the system. As you
saw, I discovered a thorn which had been driven or shot with no
great force into the scalp. You observe that the part struck was
that which would be turned towards the hole in the ceiling if the
man were erect in his chair. Now examine this thorn."
  I took it up gingerly and held it in the light of the lanter. It was
long, sharp, and black, with a glazed look near the point as though
some gummy substance had dried upon it. The blunt end had been trimmed
and rounded off with a knife.
  "Is that an English thorn?" he asked.
  "No, it certainly is not."
  "With all these data you should be able to draw some just inference.
But here are the regulars, so the auxiliary forces may beat a
retreat."
  As he spoke, the steps which had been coming nearer sounded loudly
on the passage, and a very stout, portly man in a gray suit strode
heavily into the room. He was red-faced, burly, and plethoric, with
a pair of very small twinkling eyes which looked keenly out from
between swollen and puffy pouches. He was closely followed by an
inspector in uniform and by the still palpitating Thaddeus Sholto.
  "Here's a business!" he cried in a muffled, husky voice. "Here's a
pretty business! But who are all these? Why, the house seems to be
as full as a rabbit-warren!"
  "I think you must recollect me, Mr. Athelney Jones," said Holmes
quietly.
  "Why, of course I do!" he wheezed. "It's Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the
theorist. Remember you! I'll never forget how you lectured us all on
causes and inferences and effects in the Bishopgate jewel case. It's
true you set us on the right track; but you'll own now that it was
more by good luck than good guidance."
  "It was a piece of very simple reasoning."
  "Oh, come, now, come! Never be ashamed to own up. But what is all
this? Bad business! Bad business! Stern facts here- no room for
theories. How lucky that I happened to be out at Norwood over
another case! I was at the station when the message arrived. What
d'you think the man died of?"
  "Oh, this is hardly a case for me to theorize over," said Holmes
dryly.
  "No, no. Still, we can't deny that you hit the nail on the head
sometimes. Dear me! Door locked, I understand. Jewels worth half a
million missing. How was the window?"
  "Fastened; but there are steps on the sill."
  "Well, well, if it was fastened the steps could have nothing to do
with the matter. That's common sense. Man might have died in a fit;
but then the jewels are missing. Ha! I have a theory. These flashes
come upon me at times. Just step outside, Sergeant, and you, Mr.
Sholto. Your friend can remain. What do you think of this, Holmes?
Sholto was, on his own confession, with his brother last night. the
brother died in a fit, on which Sholto walked off with the treasure?
How's that?"
  "On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door
on the inside."
  "Hum! There's a flaw there. Let us apply common sense to the matter.
This Thaddeus Sholto was with his brother; there was a quarrel: so
much we know. The brother is dead and the jewels are gone. So much
also we know. No one saw the brother from the time Thaddeus left
him. His bed had not been slept in. Thaddeus is evidently in a most
disturbed state of mind. His appearance is- well, not attractive.
You see that I am weaving my web round Thaddeus. The net begins to
close upon him."
  "You are not quite in possession of the facts yet," said Holmes.
"This splinter of wood, which I have every reason to believe to be
poisoned, was in the man's scalp where you still see the mark; this
card, inscribed as you see it, was on the table, and beside it lay
this rather curious stone-headed instrument. How does all that fit
into your theory?"
  "Confirms it in every respect," said the fat detective pompously.
"House is full of Indian curiosities. Thaddeus brought this up, and if
this splinter be poisonous Thaddeus may as well have made murderous
use of it as any other man. The card is some hocus-pocus- a blind,
as like as not. The only question is, how did he depart? Ah, of
course, here is a hole in the roof."
  With great activity, considering his bulk, he sprang up the steps
and squeezed through into the garret and immediately afterwards we
heard his exulting voice proclaiming that he had found the trapdoor.
  "He can find something," remarked Holmes, shrugging his shoulders;
"he has occasional glimmerings of reason. Il n'y a pas des sots si
incommodes que ceux qui ont de l'esprit!"
  "You see!" said Athelney Jones, reappearing down the steps again;
"facts are better than theories, after all. My view of the case is
confirmed. There is a trapdoor communicating with the roof, and it
is partly open."
  "It was I who opened it."
  "Oh, indeed! You did notice it, then?" He seemed a little
crestfallen at the discovery. "Well, whoever noticed it, it shows
how our gentleman got away. Inspector!"
  "Yes, sir," from the passage.
  "Ask Mr. Sholto to step this way.- Mr. Sholto, it is my duty to
inform you that anything which you may say will be used against you. I
arrest you in the Queen's name as being concerned in the death of your
brother."
  "There, now! Didn't I tell you!" cried the poor little man, throwing
out his hands and looking from one to the other of us.
  "Don't trouble yourself about it, Mr. Sholto," said Holmes; "I think
that I can engage to clear you of the charge."
  "Don't promise too much, Mr. Theorist, don't promise too much!"
snapped the detective. "You may find it a harder matter than you
think."
  "Not only will I clear him, Mr. Jones, but I will make you a free
present of the name and description of one of the two people who
were in this room last night. His name, I have every reason to
believe, is Jonathan Small. He is a poorly educated man, small,
active, with his right leg off, and wearing a wooden stump which is
worn away upon the inner side. His left boot has a coarse, square-toed
sole, with an iron band round the heel. He is a middle-aged man,
much sunburned, and has been a convict. These few indications may be
of some assistance to you, coupled with the fact that there is a
good deal of skin missing from the palm of his hand. The other man-"
  "Ah! the other man?" asked Athelney Jones in a sneering voice, but
impressed none the less, as I could easily see, by the precision of
the other's manner.
  "Is a rather curious person," said Sherlock Holmes, turning upon his
heel. "I hope before very long to be able to introduce you to the pair
of them. A word with you, Watson."
  He led me out to the head of the stair.
  "This unexpected occurrence," he said, "has caused us rather to lose
sight of the original purpose of our journey."
  "I have just been thinking so," I answered; "it is not right that
Miss Morstan should remain in this stricken house."
  "No. You must escort her home. She lives with Mrs. Cecil Forrester
in Lower Camberwell, so it is not very far. I will wait for you here
if you will drive out again. Or perhaps you are too tired?"
  "By no means. I don't think I could rest until I know more of this
fantastic business. I have seen something of the rough side of life,
but I give you my word that this quick succession of strange surprises
to-night has shaken my nerve completely. I should like, however, to
see the matter through with you, now that I have got so far."
  "Your presence will be of great service to me," he answered. "We
shall work the case out independently and leave this fellow Jones to
exult over any mare's-nest which he may choose to construct. When
you have dropped Miss Morstan, I wish you to go on to No. 3 Pinchin
Lane, down near the water's edge at Lambeth. The third house on the
right-hand side is a bird-stuffer's; Sherman is the name. You will see
a weasel holding a young rabbit in the window. Knock old Sherman up
and tell him, with my compliments, that I want Toby at once. You
will bring Toby back in the cab with you."
  "A dog, I suppose."
  "Yes, a queer mongrel with a most amazing power of scent. I would
rather have Toby's help than that of the whole detective force of
London."
  "I shall bring him then," said I. "It is one now. I ought to be back
before three if I can get a fresh horse."
  "And I," said Holmes, "shall see what I can learn from Mrs,
Bernstone and from the Indian servant, who, Mr. Thaddeus tells me,
sleeps in the next garret. Then I shall study the great Jones's
methods and listen to his not too delicate sarcasms.

  "`Wir sind gewohnt dass die Menschen verhohnen was sie nicht
verstehen.'

  "Goethe is always pithy."
CH7
                         Chapter 7
                 THE EPISODE OF THE BARREL

  The police had brought a cab with them, and in this I escorted
Miss Morstan back to her home. After the angelic fashion of women, she
had borne trouble with a calm face as long as there was someone weaker
than herself to support, and I had found her bright and placid by
the side of the frightened housekeeper. In the cab, however, she first
turned faint and then burst into a passion of weeping- so sorely had
she been tried by the adventures of the night. She has told me since
that she thought me cold and distant upon that journey. She little
guessed the struggle within my breast, or the effort of self-restraint
which held me back. My sympathies and my love went out to her, even as
my hand had in the garden. I felt that years of the
conventionalities of life could not teach me to know her sweet,
brave nature as had this one day of strange experiences. Yet there
were two thoughts which sealed the words of affection upon my lips.
She was weak and helpless, shaken in mind and nerve. It was to take
her at a disadvantage to obtrude love upon her at such a time. Worse
still, she was rich. If Holmes's researches were successful, she would
be an heiress. Was it fair, was it honourable, that a half-pay surgeon
should take such advantage of an intimacy which chance had brought
about? Might she not look upon me as a mere vulgar fortune-seeker? I
could not bear to risk that such a thought should cross her mind. This
Agra treasure intervened like an impassable barrier between us.
  It was nearly two o'clock when we reached Mrs. Cecil Forrester's.
The servants had retired hours ago, but Mrs. Forrester had been so
interested by the strange message which Miss Morstan had received that
she had sat up in the hope of her return. She opened the door herself,
a middle-aged, graceful woman, and it gave me joy to see how
tenderly her arm stole round the other's waist and how motherly was
the voice in which she greeted her. She was clearly no mere paid
dependant but an honoured friend. I was introduced, and Mrs. Forrester
earnestly begged me to step in and tell her our adventures. I
explained, however, the importance of my errand and promised
faithfully to call and report any progress which we might make with
the case. As we drove away I stole a glance back, and I still seem
to see that little group on the step- the two graceful, clinging
figures, the half-opened door, the hall-light shining through
stained glass, the barometer, and the bright stair-rods. It was
soothing to catch even that passing glimpse of a tranquil English home
in the midst of the wild, dark business which had absorbed us.
  And the more I thought of what had happened, the wilder and darker
it grew. I reviewed the whole extraordinary sequence of events as I
rattled on through the silent, gas-lit streets. There was the original
problem: that at least was pretty clear now. The death of Captain
Morstan, the sending of the pearls, the advertisement, the letter-
we had had light upon all those events. They had only led us, however,
to a deeper and far more tragic mystery. The Indian treasure, the
curious plan found among Morstan's baggage, the strange scene at Major
Sholto's death, the rediscovery of the treasure immediately followed
by the murder of the discoverer, the very singular accompaniments to
the crime, the footsteps, the remarkable weapons, the words upon the
card, corresponding with those upon Captain Morstan's chart- here
was indeed a labyrinth in which a man less singularly endowed than
my fellow-lodger might well despair of ever finding the clue.
  Pinchin Lane was a row of shabby, two-storied brick houses in the
lower quarter of Lambeth. I had to knock for some time at No. 3 before
I could make any impression. At last, however, there was the glint
of a candle behind the blind, and a face looked out at the upper
window.
  "Go on, you drunken vagabond," said the face. "If you kick up any
more row, I'll open the kennels and let out forty-three dogs upon
you."
  "If you'll let one out, it's just what I have come for," said I.
  "Go on!" yelled the voice. "So help me gracious, I have a wiper in
this bag, and I'll drop it on your 'ead if you don't hook it!"
  "But I want a dog," I cried.
  "I won't be argued with!" shouted Mr. Sherman. "Now stand clear, for
when I say `three,' down goes the wiper."
  "Mr. Sherlock Holmes-" I began; but the words had a most magical
effect, for the window instantly slammed down, and within a minute the
door was unbarred and open. Mr. Sherman was a lanky, lean old man,
with stooping shoulders, a stringy neck, and blue-tinted glasses.
  "A friend of Mr. Sherlock is always welcome," said he. "Step in,
sir. Keep clear of the badger, for he bites. Ah, naughty, naughty, you
take a nip at the gentleman?" This to a stoat which thrust its
wicked head and red eyes between the bars of its cage. "Don't mind
that, sir; it's only a slowworm. It hain't got no fangs, so I gives it
the run o' the room, for it keeps the beetles down. You must not
mind my bein' just a little short wi' you at first, for I'm guyed at
by the children, and there's many a one just comes down this lane to
knock me up. What was it that Mr. Sherlock Holmes wanted, sir?"
  "He wanted a dog of yours."
  "Ah! that would be Toby."
  "Yes, Toby was the name."
  "Toby lives at No. 7 on the left here."
  He moved slowly forward with his candle among the queer animal
family which he had gathered round him. In the uncertain, shadowy
light I could see dimly that there were glancing, glimmering eyes
peeping down at us from every cranny and corner. Even the rafters
above our heads were lined by solemn fowls, who lazily shifted their
weight from one leg to the other as our voices disturbed their
slumbers.
  Toby proved to be an ugly, long-haired, lop-eared creature, half
spaniel and half lurcher, brown and white in colour, with a very
clumsy, waddling gait. It accepted, after some hesitation, a lump of
sugar which the old naturalist handed to me, and, having thus sealed
an alliance, it followed me to the cab and made no difficulties
about accompanying me. It had just struck three on the Palace clock
when I found myself back once more at Pondicherry Lodge. The
ex-prize-fighter McMurdo had, I found, been arrested as an
accessory, and both he and Mr. Sholto had been marched off to the
station. Two constables guarded the narrow gate, but they allowed me
to pass with the dog on my mentioning the detective's name.
  Holmes was standing on the doorstep with his hands in his pockets,
smoking his pipe.
  "Ah, you have him there!" said he. "Good dog, then! Athelney Jones
has gone. We have had an immense display of energy since you left.
He has arrested not only friend Thaddeus but the gatekeeper, the
housekeeper, and the Indian servant. We have the place to ourselves
but for a sergeant upstairs. Leave the dog here and come up."
  We tied Toby to the hall table and reascended the stairs. The room
was as we had left it, save that a sheet had been draped over the
central figure. A weary looking police-sergeant reclined in the
corner.
  "Lend me your bull's eye, Sergeant," said my companion. "Now tie
this bit of card round my neck, so as to hang it in front of me. Thank
you. Now I must kick off my boots and stockings. just you carry them
down with you, Watson. I am going to do a little climbing. And dip
my handkerchief into the creosote. That will do. Now come up into
the garret with me for a moment."
  We clambered up through the hole. Holmes turned his light once
more upon the footsteps in the dust.
  "I wish you particularly to notice these footmarks," he said. "Do
you observe anything noteworthy about them?"
  "They belong," I said, "to a child or a small woman."
  "Apart from their size, though. Is there nothing else?"
  "They appear to be much as other footmarks."
  "Not at all. Look here! This is the print of a right foot in the
dust. Now I make one with my naked foot beside it. What is the chief
difference?"
  "Your toes are all cramped together. The other print has each toe
distinctly divided."
  "Quite so. That is the point. Bear that in mind. Now, would you
kindly step over to that flap-window and smell the edge of the
woodwork? I shall stay over here, as I have this handkerchief in my
hand."
  I did as he directed and was instantly conscious of a strong tarry
smell.
  "That is where he put his foot in getting out. If you can trace him,
I should think that Toby will have no difficulty. Now run
downstairs, loose the dog, and look out for Blondin."
  By the time that I got out into the grounds Sherlock Holmes was on
the roof, and I could see him like an enormous glow-worm crawling very
slowly along the ridge. I lost sight of him behind a stack of
chimneys, but he presently reappeared and then vanished once more upon
the opposite side. When I made my way round there I found him seated
at one of the corner eaves.
  "That you, Watson?" he cried.
  "Yes."
  "This is the place. What is that black thing down there?"
  "A water-barrel."
  "Top on it?"
  "Yes."
  "No sign of the ladder?"
  "No."
  "Confound the fellow! It's a most breakneck place. I ought to be
able to come down where he could climb up. The water-pipe feels pretty
firm. Here goes, anyhow."
  There was a scuffling of feet, and the lantern began to come
steadily down the side of the wall. Then with a light spring he came
on to the barrel, and from there to the earth.
  "It was easy to follow him," he said, drawing on his stockings and
boots. "Tiles were loosened the whole way along, and in his hurry he
had dropped this. It confirms my diagnosis, as you doctors express
it."
  The object which he held up to me was a small pocket or pouch
woven out of coloured grasses and with a few tawdry beads strung round
it. In shape and size it was not unlike a cigarette-case. Inside
were half a dozen spines of dark wood, sharp at one end and rounded at
the other, like that which had struck Bartholomew Sholto.
  "They are hellish things," said he. "Look out that you don't prick
yourself. I'm delighted to have them, for the chances are that they
are all he has. There is the less fear of you or me finding one in our
skin before long. I would sooner face a Martini bullet, myself. Are
you game for a six-mile trudge, Watson?"
  "Certainly," I answered.
  "Your leg will stand it?"
  "Oh, yes."
  "Here you are, doggy! Good old Toby! Smell it, Toby, smell it!" He
pushed the creosote handkerchief under the dog's nose, while the
creature stood with its fluffy legs separated, and with a most comical
cock to its head, like a connoisseur sniffing the bouquet of a
famous vintage. Holmes then threw the handkerchief to a distance,
fastened a stout cord to the mongrel's collar, and led him to the foot
of the water-barrel. The creature instantly broke into a succession of
high, tremulous yelps and, with his nose on the ground and his tail in
the air, pattered off upon the trail at a pace which strained his
leash and kept us at the top of our speed.
  The east had been gradually whitening, and we could now see some
distance in the cold gray light. The square, massive house, with its
black, empty windows and high, bare walls, towered up, sad and
forlorn, behind us. Our course led right across the grounds, in and
out among the trenches and pits with which they were scarred and
intersected. The whole place, with its scattered dirt-heaps and
ill-grown shrubs, had a blighted, ill-omened look which harmonized
with the black tragedy which hung over it.
  On reaching the boundary wall Toby ran along, whining eagerly,
underneath its shadow, and stopped finally in a corner screened by a
young beech. Where the two walls joined, several bricks had been
loosened, and the crevices left were worn down and rounded upon the
lower side, as though they had frequently been used as a ladder.
Holmes clambered up, and taking the dog from me he dropped it over
upon the other side.
  "There's the print of Wooden-leg's hand," he remarked as I mounted
up beside him. "You see the slight smudge of blood upon the white
plaster. What a lucky thing it is that we have had no very heavy
rain since yesterday! The scent will lie upon the road in spite of
their eight-and-twenty hours' start."
  I confess that I had my doubts myself when I reflected upon the
great traffic which had passed along the London road in the
interval. My fears were soon appeased, however. Toby never hesitated
or swerved but waddled on in his peculiar rolling fashion. Clearly the
pungent smell of the creosote rose high above all other contending
scents.
  "Do not imagine," said Holmes, "that I depend for my success in this
case upon the mere chance of one of these fellows having put his
foot in the chemical. I have knowledge now which would enable me to
trace them in many different ways. This, however, is the readiest,
and, since fortune has put it into our hands, I should be culpable
if I neglected it. It has, however, prevented the case from becoming
the pretty little intellectual problem which it at one time promised
to be. There might have been some credit to be gained out of it but
for this too palpable clue."
  "There is credit, and to spare," said I. "I assure you, Holmes, that
I marvel at the means by which you obtain your results in this case
even more than I did in the Jefferson Hope murder. The thing seems
to me to be deeper and more inexplicable. How, for example, could
you describe with such confidence the wooden-legged man?"
  "Pshaw, my dear boy! it was simplicity itself. I don't wish to be
theatrical. It is all patent and above-board. Two officers who are
in command of a convict-guard learn an important secret as to buried
treasure. A map is drawn for them by an Englishman named Jonathan
Small. You remember that we saw the name upon the chart in Captain
Morstan's possession. He had signed it in behalf of himself and his
associates- the sign of the four, as he somewhat dramatically called
it. Aided by this chart, the officers- or one of them- gets the
treasure and brings it to England, leaving, we will suppose, some
condition under which he received it unfulfilled. Now, then, why did
not Jonathan Small get the treasure himself? The answer is obvious.
The chart is dated at a time when Morstan was brought into close
association with convicts. Jonathan Small did not get the treasure
because he and his associates were themselves convicts and could not
get away."
  "But this is mere speculation," said I.
  "It is more than that. It is the only hypothesis which covers the
facts. Let us see how it fits in with the sequel. Major Sholto remains
at peace for some years, happy in the possession of his treasure. Then
he receives a letter from India which gives him a great fright.
"What was that?"
  "A letter to say that the men whom he had wronged had been set
free."
  "Or had escaped. That is much more likely, for he would have known
what their term of imprisonment was. It would not have been a surprise
to him. What does he do then? He guards himself against a
wooden-legged man- a white man, mark you, for he mistakes a white
tradesman for him and actually fires a pistol at him. Now, only one
white man's name is on the chart. The others are Hindoos or
Mohammedans. There is no other white man. Therefore we may say with
confidence that the wooden legged man is identical with Jonathan
Small. Does the reasoning strike you as being faulty?"
  "No: it is clear and concise."
  "Well, now, let us put ourselves in the place of Jonathan Small. Let
us look at it from his point of view. He comes to England with the
double idea of regaining what he would consider to be his rights and
of having his revenge upon the man who had wronged him. He found out
where Sholto lived, and very possibly he established communications
with someone inside the house. there is this butler, Lal Rao, whom
we have not seen. Mrs. Bernstone gives him far from a good
character. Small could not find out, however, where the treasure was
hid, for no one ever knew save the major and one faithful servant
who had died. Suddenly Small learns that the major is on his deathbed.
In a frenzy lest the secret of the treasure die with him, he runs
the gauntlet of the guards, makes his way to the dying man's window,
and is only deterred from entering by the presence of his two sons.
Mad with hate, however, against the dead man, he enters the room
that night, searches his private papers in the hope of discovering
some memorandum relating to the treasure, and finally leaves a memento
of his visit in the short inscription upon the card. He had
doubtless planned beforehand that, should he slay the major, he
would leave some such record upon the body as a sign that it was not a
common murder but, from the point of view of the four associates,
something in the nature of an act of justice. Whimsical and bizarre
conceits of this kind are common enough in the annals of crime and
usually afford valuable indications as to the criminal. Do you
follow all this?"
  "Very clearly."
  "Now what could Jonathan Small do? He could only continue to keep
a secret watch upon the efforts made to find the treasure. Possibly he
leaves England and only comes back at intervals. Then comes the
discovery of the garret, and he is instantly informed of it. We
again trace the presence of some confederate in the household.
Jonathan, with his wooden leg, is utterly unable to reach the lofty
room of Bartholomew Sholto. He takes with him, however, a rather
curious associate, who gets over this difficulty but dips his naked
foot creosote, whence come Toby, and a six-mile limp for a half-pay
officer with a damaged tendo Achillis."
  "But it was the associate and not Jonathan who committed the crime."
  "Quite so. And rather to Jonathan's disgust, to judge by the way
he stamped about when he got into the room. He bore no grudge
against Bartholomew Sholto and would have preferred if he could have
been simply bound and gagged. He did not wish to put his head in a
halter. There was no help for it, however: the savage instincts of his
companion had broken out, and the poison had done its work: so
Jonathan Small left his record, lowered the treasure-box to the
ground, and followed it himself. That was the train of events as far
as I can decipher them. Of course, as to his personal appearance, he
must be middle-aged and must be sunburned after serving his time in
such an oven as the Andamans. His height is readily calculated from
the length of his stride, and we know that he was bearded. His
hairiness was the one point which impressed itself upon Thaddeus
Sholto when he saw him at the window. I don't know that there is
anything else."
  "The associate?"
  "Ah, well, there is no great mystery in that. But you will know
all about it soon enough. How sweet the morning air is! See how that
one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic
flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London
cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet,
who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with
our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great
elemental forces of Nature! Are you well up in your Jean Paul?"
  "Fairly so. I worked back to him through Carlyle."
  "That was like following the brook to the parent lake. He makes
one curious but profound remark. It is that the chief proof of man's
real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. It argues,
you see, a power of comparison and of appreciation which is in
itself a proof of nobility. There is much food for thought in Richter.
You have not a pistol, have you?"
  "I have my stick."
  "It is just possible that we may need something of the sort if we
get to their lair. Jonathan I shall leave to you, but if the other
turns nasty I shall shoot him dead."
  He took out his revolver as he spoke, and, having loaded two of
the chambers, he put it back into the right-hand pocket of his jacket.
  We had during this time been following the guidance of Toby down the
halfrural villa-lined roads which lead to the metropolis. Now,
however, we were beginning to come among continuous streets, where
labourers and dockmen were already astir, and slatternly women were
taking down shutters and brushing doorsteps. At the square-topped
corner public-houses business was just beginning, and rough-looking
men were emerging, rubbing their sleeves across their beards after
their morning wet. Strange dogs sauntered up and stared wonderingly at
us as we passed, but our inimitable Toby looked neither to the right
nor to the left but trotted onward with his nose to the ground and
an occasional eager whine which spoke of a hot scent.
  We had traversed Streatham, Brixton, Camberwell, and now found
ourselves in Kennington line, having borne away through the side
streets to the east of the Oval. The men whom we pursued seemed to
have taken a curiously zigzag road, with the idea probably of escaping
observation. They had never kept to the main road if a parallel side
street would serve their turn. At the foot of Kennington Lane they had
edged away to the left through Bond Street and Miles Street. Where the
latter street turns into Knight's Place, Toby ceased to advance but
began to run backward and forward with one ear cocked and the other
drooping, the very picture of canine indecision. Then he waddled round
in circles, looking up to us from time to time, as if to ask for
sympathy in his embarrassment.
  "What the deuce is the matter with the dog?" growled Holmes. "They
surely would not take a cab or go off in a balloon."
  "Perhaps they stood here for some time," I suggested.
  "Ah! it's all right. He's off again," said my companion in a tone of
relief.
  He was indeed off, for after sniffing round again he suddenly made
up his mind and darted away with an energy and determination such as
he had not yet shown. The scent appeared to be much hotter than
before, for he had not even to put his nose on the ground but tugged
at his leash and tried to break into a run. I could see by the gleam
in Holmes's eyes that he thought we were nearing the end of our
journey.
  Our course now ran down Nine Elms until we came to Broderick and
Nelson's large timber-yard just past the White Eagle tavern. Here
the dog, frantic with excitement, turned down through the side gate
into the enclosure, where the sawyers were already at work. On the dog
raced through sawdust and shavings, down an alley, round a passage,
between two wood-piles, and finally, with a triumphant yelp, sprang
upon a large barrel which still stood upon the hand-trolley on which
it had been brought. With lolling tongue and blinking eyes Toby
stood upon the cask, looking from one to the other of us for some sign
of appreciation. He staves of the barrel and the wheels of the trolley
were smeared with a dark liquid, and the whole air was heavy with
the smell of creosote.
  Sherlock Holmes and I looked blankly at each other and then burst
simultaneously into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
CH8
                         Chapter 8
               THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS

  "What now?" I asked. "Toby has lost his character for
infallibility."
  "He acted according to his lights," said Holmes, lifting him down
from the barrel and walking him out of the timber-yard. "If you
consider how much creosote is carted about London in one day, it is no
great wonder that our trail should have been crossed. It is much
used now, especially for the seasoning of wood. Poor Toby is not to
blame."
  "We must get on the main scent again, I suppose."
  "Yes. And, fortunately, we have no distance to go. Evidently what
puzzled the dog at the corner of Knight's Place was that there were
two different trails running in opposite directions. We took the wrong
one. It only remains to follow the other."
  There was no difficulty about this. On leading Toby to the place
where he had committed his fault, he cast about in a wide circle and
finally dashed off in a fresh direction.
  "We must take care that he does not now bring us to the place
where the creosote barrel came from," I observed.
  "I had thought of that. But you notice that he keeps on the
pavement, whereas the barrel passed down the roadway. No, we are on
the true scent now."
  It tended down towards the riverside, running through Belmont
Place and Prince's Street. At the end of Broad Street it ran right
down to the water's edge, where there was a small wooden wharf. Toby
led us to the very edge of this and there stood whining, looking out
on the dark current beyond.
  "We are out of luck," said Holmes. "They have taken to a boat here."
  Several small punts and skiffs were lying about in the water and
on the edge of the wharf. We took Toby round to each in turn, but
though he sniffed earnestly he made no sign.
  Close to the rude landing-stage was a small brick house, with a
wooden placard slung out through the second window. "Mordecai Smith"
was printed across it in large letters, and, underneath, "Boats to
hire by the hour or day." A second inscription above the door informed
us that a steam launch was kept- a statement which was confirmed by
a great pile of coke upon the jetty. Sherlock Holmes looked slowly
round, and his face assumed an ominous expression.
  "This looks bad" said he. "These fellows are sharper than I
expected. They seem to have covered their tracks. There has, I fear,
been preconcerted management here."
  He was approaching the door of the house, when it opened, and a
little curlyheaded lad of six came running out, followed by a
stoutish, red-faced woman with a large sponge in her hand.
  "You come back and be washed, Jack," she shouted. "Come back, you
young imp; for if your father comes home and finds you like that he'll
let us hear of it."
  "Dear little chap!" said Holmes strategically. "What a
rosy-cheeked young rascal! Now, Jack, is there anything you would
like?"
  The youth pondered for a moment.
  "I'd like a shillin'," said he.
  "Nothing you would like better?"
  "I'd like two shillin' better," the prodigy answered after some
thought.
  "Here you are, then! Catch!- A fine child, Mrs. Smith!"
  "Lor' bless you, sir, he is that, and forward. He gets a'most too
much for me to manage, 'specially when my man is away days at a time."
  "Away, is he?" said Holmes in a disappointed voice. "I am sorry
for that, for I wanted to speak to Mr. Smith."
  "He's been away since yesterday mornin', sir, and, truth to tell,
I am beginnin' to feel frightened about him. But if it was about a
boat, sir, maybe I could serve as well."
  "I wanted to hire his steam launch."
  "Why, bless you, sir, it is in the steam launch that he has gone.
That's what puzzles me; for I know there ain't more coals in her
than would take her to about Woolwich and back. If he's been away in
the barge I'd ha' thought nothin'; for many a time a job has taken him
as far as Gravesend, and then if there was much doin' there he might
ha' stayed over. But what good is a steam launch without coals?"
  "He might have bought some at a wharf down the river."
  "He might, sir, but it weren't his way. Many a time I've heard him
call out at the prices they charge for a few odd bags. Besides, I
don't like that wooden legged man, wi' his ugly face and outlandish
talk. What did he want always knockin' about here for?"
  "A wooden legged man?" said Holmes with bland surprise.
  "Yes, sir, a brown, monkey-faced chap that's called more'n once
for my old man. It was him that roused him up yesternight, and, what's
more, my man knew he was comin', for he had steam up in the launch.
I tell you straight, sir, I don't feel easy in my mind about it."
  "But, my dear Mrs. Smith," said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders,
"you are frightening yourself about nothing. How could you possibly
tell that it was the wooden-legged man who came in the night? I
don't quite understand how you can be so sure."
  "His voice, sir. I knew his voice, which is kind o' thick and foggy.
He tapped at the winder- about three it would be. `Show a leg, matey,'
says he: `time to turn out guard.' My old man woke up Jim- that's my
eldest- and away they went without so much as a word to me. I could
hear the wooden leg clackin' on the stones."
  "And was this wooden-legged man alone?"
  "Couldn't say, I am sure, sir. I didn't hear no one else."
  "I am sorry, Mrs. Smith, for I wanted a steam launch, and I have
heard good reports of the- Let me see, what is her name?"
  "The Aurora, sir."
  "Ah! She's not that old green launch with a yellow line, very
broad in the beam?"
  "No, indeed. She's as trim a little thing as any on the river. She's
been fresh painted, black with two red streaks."
  "Thanks. I hope that you will hear soon from Mr. Smith. I am going
down the river, and if I should see anything of the Aurora I shall let
him know that you are uneasy. A black funnel, you say?"
  "No, sir. Black with a white band."
  "Ah, of course. It was the sides which were black. Good-morning,
Mrs. Smith. There is a boatman here with a wherry, Watson. We shall
take it and cross the river."
  "The main thing with people of that sort," said Holmes as we sat
in the sheets of the wherry, "is never to let them think that their
information can be of the slightest importance to you. If you do
they will instantly shut up like an oyster. If you listen to them
under protest, as it were, you are very likely to get what you want."
  "Our course now seems pretty clear," said I.
  "What would you do, then?"
  "I would engage a launch and go down the river on the track of the
Aurora."
  "My dear fellow, it would be a colossal task. She may have touched
at any wharf on either side of the stream between here and
Greenwich. Below the bridge there is a perfect labyrinth of
landing-places for miles. It would take you days and days to exhaust
them if you set about it alone."
  "Employ the police, then."
  "No. I shall probably call Athelney Jones in at the last moment.
He is not a bad fellow, and I should not like to do anything which
would injure him professionally. But I have a fancy for working it out
myself, now that we have gone so far."
  "Could we advertise, then, asking for information from wharfingers?"
  "Worse and worse! Our men would know that the chase was hot at their
heels, and they would be off out of the country. As it is, they are
likely enough to leave, but as long as they think they are perfectly
safe they will be in no hurry. Jones's energy will be of use to us
there, for his view of the case is sure to push itself into the
daily press, and the runaways will think that everyone is off on the
wrong scent."
  "What are we to do, then?" I asked as we landed near Millbank
Penitentiary.
  "Take this hansom, drive home, have some breakfast, and get an
hour's sleep. It is quite on the cards that we may be afoot to-night
again. Stop at a telegraph office, cabby! We will keep Toby, for he
may be of use to us yet."
  We pulled up at the Great Peter Street Post-Office, and Holmes
dispatched his wire.
  "Whom do you think that is to?" he asked as we resumed our journey.
  "I am sure I don't know."
  "You remember the Baker Street division of the detective police
force whom I employed in the Jefferson Hope case?"
  "Well," said I, laughing.
  "This is just the case where they might be invaluable. If they
fail I have other resources, but I shall try them first. That wire was
to my dirty little lieutenant, Wiggins, and I expect that he and his
gang will be with us before we have finished our breakfast."
  It was between eight and nine o'clock now, and I was conscious of
a strong reaction after the successive excitements of the night. I was
limp and weary, befogged in mind and fatigued in body. I had not the
professional enthusiasm which carried my companion on, nor could I
look at the matter as a mere abstract intellectual problem. As far
as the death of Bartholomew Sholto went, I had heard little good of
him and could feel no intense antipathy to his murderers. The
treasure, however, was a different matter. That, or part of it,
belonged rightfully to Miss Morstan. While there was a chance of
recovering it I was ready to devote my life to the one object. True,
if I found it, it would probably put her forever beyond my reach.
Yet it would be a petty and selfish love which would be influenced
by such a thought as that. If Holmes could work to find the criminals,
I had a tenfold stronger reason to urge me on to find the treasure.
  A bath at Baker Street and a complete change freshened me up
wonderfully. When I came down to our room I found the breakfast laid
and Holmes pouring out the coffee.
  "Here it is," said he, laughing and pointing to an open newspaper.
"The energetic Jones and the ubiquitous reporter have fixed it up
between them. But you have had enough of the case. Better have your
ham and eggs first."
  I took the paper from him and read the short notice, which was
headed "Mysterious Business at Upper Norwood."

  About twelve o'clock last night [said the Standard] Mr.
Bartholomew Sholto, of Pondicherry Lodge, Upper Norwood, was found
dead in his room under circumstances which point to foul play. As
far as we can learn, no actual traces of violence were found upon
Mr. Sholto's person, but a valuable collection of Indian gems which
the deceased gentleman had inherited from his father has been
carried off. The discovery was first made by Mr. Sherlock Holmes and
Dr. Watson, who had called at the house with Mr. Thaddeus Sholto,
brother of the deceased. By a singular piece of good fortune, Mr.
Athelney Jones, the well-known member of the detective police force,
happened to be at the Norwood police station and was on the ground
within half an hour of the first alarm. His trained and experienced
faculties were at once directed towards the detection of the
criminals, with the gratifying result that the brother, Thaddeus
Sholto, has already been arrested, together with the housekeeper, Mrs.
Bernstone, an Indian butler named Lal Rao, and a porter, or
gatekeeper, named McMurdo. It is quite certain that the thief or
thieves were well acquainted with the house, for Mr. Jones's
well-known technical knowledge and his powers of minute observation
have enabled him to prove conclusively that the miscreants could not
have entered by the door or by the window but must have made their way
across the roof of the building, and so through a trapdoor into a room
which communicated with that in which the body was found. This fact,
which has been very clearly made out, proves conclusively that it
was no mere haphazard burglary. The prompt and energetic action of the
officers of the law shows the great advantage of the presence on
such occasions of a single vigorous and masterful mind. We cannot
but think that it supplies an argument to those who would wish to
see our detectives more de-centralized, and so brought into closer and
more effective touch with the cases which it is their duty to
investigate.

  "Isn't it gorgeous!" said Holmes, grinning over his coffee cup.
"What do you think of it?"
  "I think that we have had a close shave ourselves of being
arrested for the crime."
  "So do I. I wouldn't answer for our safety now if he should happen
to have another of his attacks of energy."
  At this moment there was a loud ring at the bell, and I could hear
Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, raising her voice in a wail of
expostulation and dismay.
  "By heavens, Holmes," I said, half rising, "I believe that they
are really after us."
  "No, it's not quite so bad as that. It is the unofficial force-
the Baker Street irregulars."
  As he spoke, there came a swift pattering of naked feet upon the
stairs, a clatter of high voices, and in rushed a dozen dirty and
ragged little street Arabs. There was some show of discipline among
them, despite their tumultuous entry, for they instantly drew up in
line and stood facing us with expectant faces. One of their number,
taller and older than the others, stood forward with an air of
lounging superiority which was very funny in such a disreputable
little scarecrow.
  "Got your message, sir," said he, "and brought 'em on sharp. Three
bob and a tanner for tickets."
  "Here you are," said Holmes, producing some silver. "In future
they can report to you, Wiggins, and you to me. I cannot have the
house invaded in this way. However, it is just as well that you should
all hear the instructions. I want to find the whereabouts of a steam
launch called the Aurora, owner Mordecai Smith, black with two red
streaks, funnel black with a white band. She is down the river
somewhere. I want one boy to be at Mordecai Smith's landing-stage
opposite Millbank to say if the boat comes back. You must divide it
out among yourselves and do both banks thoroughly. Let me know the
moment you have news. Is that all clear?"
  "Yes, guv'nor," said Wiggins.
  "The old scale of pay, and a guinea to the boy who finds the boat.
Here's a day in advance. Now off you go!"
  He handed them a shilling each, and away they buzzed down the
stairs, and I saw them a moment later streaming down the street.
  "If the launch is above water they will find her," said Holmes as he
rose from the table and lit his pipe. "They can go everywhere, see
everything, overhear everyone. I expect to hear before evening that
they have spotted her. In the meanwhile, we can do nothing but await
results. We cannot pick up the broken trail until we find either the
Aurora or Mr. Mordecai Smith."
  "Toby could eat these scraps, I dare say. Are you going to bed,
Holmes?"
  "No: I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember
feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely. I am
going to smoke and to think over this queer business to which my
fair client has introduced us. If ever man had an easy task, this of
ours ought to be. Wooden-legged men are not so common, but the other
man must, I should think, be absolutely unique."
  "That other man again!"
  "I have no wish to make a mystery of him to you, anyway. But you
must have formed your own opinion. Now, do consider the data.
Diminutive footmarks, toes never fettered by boots, naked feet,
stone-headed wooden mace, great agility, small poisoned darts. What do
you make of all this?"
  "A savage!" I exclaimed. "Perhaps one of those Indians who were
the associates of Jonathan Small."
  "Hardly that," said he. "When first I saw signs of strange weapons I
was inclined to think so, but the remarkable character of the
footmarks caused me to reconsider my views. Some of the inhabitants of
the Indian Peninsula are small men, but none could have left such
marks as that. The Hindoo proper has long and thin feet. The
sandal-wearing Mohammedan has the great toe well separated from the
others because the thong is commonly passed between. These little
darts, too, could only be shot in one way. They are from a
blow-pipe. Now, then, where are we to find our savage?"
  "South America," I hazarded.
  He stretched his hand up and took down a bulky volume from the
shelf.
  "This is the first volume of a gazetteer which is now being
published. It may be looked upon as the very latest authority. What
have we here?

  "Andaman Islands, situated 340 miles to the north of Sumatra, in the
Bay of Bengal.

Hum! hum! What's all this? Moist climate, coral reefs, sharks, Port
Blair, convict barracks, Rutland Island, cottonwoods- Ah, here we are!

  "The aborigines of the Andaman Islands may perhaps claim the
distinction of being the smallest race upon this earth, though some
anthropologists prefer the Bushmen of Africa, the Digger Indians of
America, and the Terra del Fuegians. The average height is rather
below four feet, although many full-grown adults may be found who
are very much smaller than this. They are a fierce, morose, and
intractable people, though capable of fortning most devoted
friendships when their confidence has once been gained.

Mark that, Watson. Now, then listen to this.

  "They are naturally hideous, having large, misshapen heads, small
fierce eyes, and distorted features. Their feet and hands, however,
are remarkably small. So intractable and fierce are they, that all the
efforts of the British officials have failed to win them over in any
degree. They have always been a terror to shipwrecked crews,
braining the survivors with their stone-headed clubs or shooting
them with their poisoned arrows. These massacres are invariably
concluded by a cannibal feast.

Nice, amiable people, Watson! If this fellow had been left to his
own unaided devices, this affair might have taken an even more ghastly
turn. I fancy that, even as it is, Jonathan Small would give a good
deal not to have employed him."
  "But how came he to have so singular a companion?"
  "Ah, that is more than I can tell. Since, however, we had already
determined that Small had come from the Andamans, it is not so very
wonderful that this islander should be with him. No doubt we shall
know all about it in time. Look here, Watson; you look regularly done.
Lie down there on the sofa and see if I can put you to sleep."
  He took up his violin from the corner, and as I stretched myself out
he began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air- his own, no doubt,
for he had a remarkable gift for improvisation. I have a vague
remembrance of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face and the rise and fall
of his bow. Then I seemed to be floated peacefully away upon a soft
sea of sound until I found myself in dreamland, with the sweet face of
Mary Morstan looking down upon me.
CH9
                          Chapter 9
                    A BREAK IN THE CHAIN

  It was late in the afternoon before I woke, strengthened and
refreshed. Sherlock Holmes still sat exactly as I had left him, save
that he had laid aside his violin and was deep in a book. He looked
across at me as I stirred, and I noticed that his face was dark and
troubled.
  "You have slept soundly," he said. "I feared that our talk would
wake you."
  "I heard nothing," I answered. "Have you had fresh news, then?"
  "Unfortunately, no. I confess that I am surprised and
disappointed. I expected something definite by this time. Wiggins
has just been up to report. He says that no trace can be found of
the launch. It is a provoking check, for every hour is of importance."
  "Can I do anything? I am perfectly fresh now, and quite ready for
another night's outing."
  "No; we can do nothing. We can only wait. If we go ourselves the
message might come in our absence and delay be caused. You can do what
you will, but I must remain on guard."
  "Then I shall run over to Camberwell and call upon Mrs. Cecil
Forrester. She asked me to, yesterday."
  "On Mrs. Cecil Forrester?" asked Holmes with the twinkle of a
smile in his eyes.
  "Well, of course on Miss Morstan, too. They were anxious to hear
what happened."
  "I would not tell them too much," said Holmes. "Women are never to
be entirely trusted- not the best of them."
  I did not pause to argue over this atrocious sentiment.
  "I shall be back in an hour or two," I remarked.
  "All right! Good luck! But, I say, if you are crossing the river you
may as well return Toby, for I don't think it is at all likely that we
shall have any use for him now."
  I took our mongrel accordingly and left him, together with a
half-sovereign, at the old naturalist's in Pinchin Lane. At Camberwell
I found Miss Morstan a little weary after her night's adventures but
very eager to hear the news. Mrs. Forrester, too, was full of
curiosity. I told them all that we had done, suppressing, however, the
more dreadful parts of the tragedy. Thus, although I spoke of Mr.
Sholto's death, I said nothing of the exact manner and method of it.
With all my omissions, however, there was enough to startle and
amaze them.
  "It is a romance!" cried Mrs. Forrester. "An injured lady, half a
million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden legged ruffian.
They take the place of the conventional dragon or wicked earl."
  "And two knight-errants to the rescue," added Miss Morstan with a
bright glance at me.
  "Why, Mary, your fortune depends upon the issue of this search. I
don't think that you are nearly excited enough. just imagine what it
must be to be so rich and to have the world at your feet!"
  It sent a little thrill of joy to my heart to notice that she showed
no sign of elation at the prospect. On the contrary, she gave a toss
of her proud head, as though the matter were one in which she took
small interest.
  "It is for Mr. Thaddeus Sholto that I am anxious," she said.
"Nothing else is of any consequence; but I think that he has behaved
most kindly and honourably throughout. It is our duty to clear him
of this dreadful and unfounded charge."
  It was evening before I left Camberwell, and quite dark by the
time I reached home. My companion's book and pipe lay by his chair,
but he had disappeared. I looked about in the hope of seeing a note,
but there was none.
  "I suppose that Mr. Sherlock Holmes has gone out," I said to Mrs.
Hudson as she came up to lower the blinds.
  "No, sir. He has gone to his room, sir. Do you know, sir," sinking
her voice into an impressive whisper, "I am afraid for his health."
  "Why so, Mrs. Hudson?"
  "Well, he's that strange, sir. After you was gone he walked and he
walked, up and down, and up and down, until I was weary of the sound
of his footstep. Then I heard him talking to himself and muttering,
and every time the bell rang out he came on the stairhead, with
`What is that, Mrs. Hudson?' And now he has slammed off to his room,
but I can hear him walking away the same as ever. I hope he's not
going to be ill, sir. I ventured to say something to him about cool.
medicine, but he turned on me, sir, with such a look that I don't know
how ever I got out of the room."
  "I don't think that you have any cause to be uneasy, Mrs. Hudson," I
answered. "I have seen him like this before. He has some small
matter upon his mind which makes him restless."
  I tried to speak lightly to our worthy landlady, but I was myself
somewhat uneasy when through the long night I still from time to
time heard the dull sound of his tread, and knew how his keen spirit
was chafing against this involuntary inaction.
  At breakfast-time he looked worn and haggard, with a little fleck of
feverish colour upon either cheek.
  "You are knocking yourself up, old man," I remarked. "I heard you
marching about in the night."
  "No, I could not sleep," he answered. "This infernal problem is
consuming me. It is too much to be balked by so petty an obstacle,
when all else had been overcome. I know the men, the launch,
everything; and yet I can get no news. I have set other agencies at
work and used every means at my disposal. The whole river has been
searched on either side, but there is no news, nor has Mrs. Smith
heard of her husband. I shall come to the conclusion soon that they
have scuttled the craft. But there are objections to that."
  "Or that Mrs. Smith has put us on a wrong scent."
  "No, I think that may be dismissed. I had inquiries made, and
there is a launch of that description."
  "Could it have gone up the river?"
  "I have considered that possibility, too and there is a search-party
who will work up as far as Richmond. If no news comes to-day I shall
start off myself tomorrow and go for the men rather than the boat. But
surely, surely, we shall hear something."
  We did not, however. Not a word came to us either from Wiggins or
from the other agencies. There were articles in most of the papers
upon the Norwood tragedy. They all appeared to be rather hostile to
the unfortunate Thaddeus Sholto. No fresh details were to be found,
however, in any of them, save that an inquest was to be held upon
the following day. I walked over to Camberwell in the evening to
report our ill-success to the ladies, and on my return I found
Holmes dejected and somewhat morose. He would hardly reply to my
questions and busied himself all evening in an obtruse chemical
analysis  which involved much heating of retorts and distilling of
vapours, ending at last in a smell which fairly drove me out of the
apartment. Up to the small hours of the morning I could hear the
clinking of his test-tubes which told me that he was still engaged
in his malodorous experiment.
  In the early dawn I woke with a start and was surprised to find
him standing by my bedside, clad in a rude sailor dress with a
pea-jacket and a coarse red scarf round his neck.
  "I am off down the river, Watson," said he. "I have been turning
it over in my mind, and I can see only one way out of it. It is
worth trying, at all events."
  "Surely I can come with you, then?" said I.
  "No; you can be much more useful if you will remain here as my
representative. I am loath to go, for it is quite on the cards that
some message may come during the day, though Wiggins was despondent
about it last night. I want you to open all notes and telegrams, and
to act on your own judgment if any news should come. Can I rely upon
you?"
  "Most certainly."
  "I am afraid that you will not be able to wire to me, for I can
hardly tell yet where I may find myself. If I am in luck, however, I
may not be gone so very long. I shall have news of some sort or
other before I get back."
  I had heard nothing of him by breakfast time. On opening the
Standard, however, I found that there was a fresh allusion to the
business.

  With reference to the Upper Norwood tragedy [it remarked] we have
reason to believe that the matter promises to be even more complex and
mysterious than was originally supposed. Fresh evidence has shown that
it is quite impossible that Mr. Thaddeus Sholto could have been in any
way concerned in the matter. He and the housekeeper, Mrs. Bernstone,
were both released yesterday evening. It is believed, however, that
the police have a clue as to the real culprits, and that it is being
prosecuted by Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard, with all his
well-known energy and sagacity. Further arrests may be expected at any
moment.

  "That is satisfactory so far as it goes," thought I. "Friend
Sholto is safe, at any rate. I wonder what the fresh clue may be,
though it seems to be a stereotyped form whenever the police have made
a blunder."
  I tossed the paper down upon the table, but at that moment my eye
caught an advertisement in the agony column. It ran in this way:

  Lost- Whereas Mordecai Smith, boatman, and his son Jim, left Smith's
Wharf at or about three o'clock last Tuesday morning in the steam
launch Aurora, black with two red stripes, funnel black with a white
band, the sum of five pounds will be paid to anyone who can give
information to Mrs. Smith, at Smith's Wharf, or at 221B, Baker Street,
as to the whereabouts of the said Mordecai Smith and the launch
Aurora.

  This was clearly Holmes's doing. The Baker Street address was enough
to prove that. It struck me as rather ingenious because it might be
read by the fugitives without their seeing in it more than the natural
anxiety of a wife for her missing husband.
  It was a long day. Every time that a knock came to the door or a
sharp step passed in the street, I imagined that it was either
Holmes returning or an answer to his advertisement. I tried to read,
but my thoughts would wander off to our strange quest and to the
ill-assorted and villainous pair whom we were pursuing. Could there
be, I wondered, some radical flaw in my companion's reasoning? Might
he not be suffering from some huge self-deception? Was it not possible
that his nimble and speculative mind had built up this wild theory
upon faulty premises? I had never known him to be wrong, and yet the
keenest reasoner may occasionally be deceived. He was likely, I
thought, to fall into error through the over-refinement of his
logic- his preference for a subtle and bizarre explanation when a
plainer and more commonplace one lay ready to his hand. Yet, on the
other hand, I had myself seen the evidence, and I had heard the
reasons for his deductions. When I looked back on the long chain of
curious circumstances, many of them trivial in themselves but all
tending in the same direction, I could not disguise from myself that
even if Holmes's explanation were incorrect the true theory must be
equally outre and startling.
  At three o'clock on the afternoon there was a loud peal at the bell,
an authoritative voice in the hall, and, to my surprise, no less a
person than Mr. Athelney Jones was shown up to me. Very different
was he, however, from the brusque and masterful professor of common
sense who had taken over the case so confidently at Upper Norwood. His
expression was downcast, and his bearing meek and even apologetic.
  "Good-day, sir, good-day," said he. "Mr. Sherlock Holmes is out, I
understand."
  "Yes, and I cannot be sure when he will be back. But perhaps you
would care to wait. Take that chair and try one of these cigars."
  "Thank you; I don't mind if I do," said he, mopping his face with
a red bandanna handkerchief.
  "And a whisky and soda?"
  "Well, half a glass. It is very hot for the time of year, and I have
had a good deal to worry and try me. You know my theory about this
Norwood case?"
  "I remember that you expressed one."
  "Well, I have been obliged to reconsider it. I had my net drawn
tightly round Mr. Sholto, sir, when pop he went through a hole in
the middle of it. He was able to prove an alibi which could not be
shaken. From the time that he left his brothers room he was never
out of sight of someone or other. So it could not be he who climbed
over roofs and through trapdoors. It's a very dark case, and my
professional credit is at stake. I should be very glad of a little
assistance."
  "We all need help sometimes," said I.
  "Your friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, is a wonderful man, sir," said he
in a husky and confidential voice. "He's a man who is not to be
beat. I have known that young man go into a good many cases, but I
never saw the case yet that he could not throw a light upon. He is
irregular in his methods and a little quick perhaps in jumping at
theories, but, on the whole, I think he would have made a most
promising officer, and I don't care who knows it. I have had a wire
from him this morning, by which I understand that he has got some clue
to this Sholto business. Here is his message."
  He took the telegram out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was
dated from Poplar at twelve o'clock.

  Go to Baker Street at once [it said]. If I have not returned, wait
for me. I am close on the track of the Sholto gang. You can come
with us to-night if you want to be in at the finish.

  "This sounds well. He has evidently picked up the scent again," said
I.
  "Ah, then he has been at fault too," exclaimed Jones with evident
satisfaction. "Even the best of us are thrown off sometimes. Of course
this may prove to be a false alarm but it is my duty as an officer
of the law to allow no chance to slip. But there is someone at the
door. Perhaps this is he."
  A heavy step was heard ascending the stair, with a great wheezing
and rattling as from a man who was sorely put to it for breath. Once
or twice he stopped, as though the climb were too much for him, but at
last he made his way to our door and entered. His appearance
corresponded to the sounds which we had heard. He was an aged man,
clad in seafaring garb, with an old pea-jacket buttoned up to his
throat. His back was bowed, his knees were shaky, and his breathing
was painfully asthmatic. As he leaned upon a thick oaken cudgel his
shoulders heaved in the effort to draw the air into his lungs. He
had a coloured scarf round his chin, and I could see little of his
face save a pair of keen dark eyes, overhung by bushy white brows
and long gray side-whiskers. Altogether he gave me the impression of a
respectable master mariner who had fallen into years and poverty.
  "What is it, my man?" I asked.
  He looked about him in the slow methodical fashion of old age.
  "Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?" said he.
  "No; but I am acting for him. You can tell me any message you have
for him."
  "It was to him himself I was to tell it," said he.
  "But I tell you that I am acting for him. Was it about Mordecai
Smith's boat?"
  "Yes. I knows well where it is. An' I knows where the men he is
after are. An' I knows where the treasure is. I knows all about it."
  "Then tell me, and I shall let him know."
  "It was to him I was to tell it," he repeated with the petulant
obstinacy of a very old man.
  "Well, you must wait for him."
  "No, no; I ain't goin' to lose a whole day to please no one. If
Mr. Holmes ain't here, then Mr. Holmes must find it all out for
himself. I don't care about the look of either of you, and I won't
tell a word."
  He shuffled towards the door, but Athelney Jones got in front of
him.
  "Wait a bit, my friend," said he. "You have important information,
and you must not walk off. We shall keep you, whether you like or not,
until our friend returns."
  The old man made a little run towards the door, but, as Athelney
Jones put his broad back up against it, he recognized the
uselessness of resistance.
  "Pretty sort o' treatment this!" he cried, stamping his stick. "I
come here to see a gentleman, and you two, who I never saw in my life,
seize me and treat me in this fashion!"
  "You will be none the worse," I said. "We shall recompense you for
the loss of your time. Sit over here on the sofa, and you will not
have long to wait."
  He came across sullenly enough and seated himself with his face
resting on his hands. Jones and I resumed our cigars and our talk.
Suddenly, however, Holmes's voice broke in upon us.
  "I think that you might offer me a cigar too," he said.
  We both started in our chairs. There was Holmes sitting close to
us with an air of quiet amusement.
  "Holmes!' I exclaimed. "You here! But where is the old man?"
  "Here is the old man" said he, holding out a heap of white hair.
"Here he is, wig, whiskers, eyebrows, and all. I thought my disguise
was pretty good, but I hardly expected that it would stand that test."
  "Ah, you rogue!" cried Jones, highly delighted. "You would have made
an actor and a rare one. You had the proper workhouse cough, and those
weak legs of yours are worth ten pound a week. I thought I knew the
glint of your eye, though. You didn't get away from us so easily,
you see."
  "I have been working in that get-up all day," said he, lighting
his cigar. "You see, a good many of the criminal classes begin to know
me- especially since our friend here took to publishing some of my
cases: so I can only go on the war-path under some simple disguise
like this. You got my wire?"
  "Yes; that was what brought me here."
  "How has your case prospered?"
  "It has all come to nothing. I have had to release two of my
prisoners, and there is no evidence against the other two."
  "Never mind. We shall give you two others in the place of them.
But you must put yourself under my orders. You are welcome to all
the official credit, but you must act on the lines that I point out.
Is that agreed?"
  "Entirely, if you will help me to the men."
  "Well, then, in the first place I shall want a fast police-boat- a
steam launch- to be at the Westminster Stairs at seven o'clock."
  "That is easily managed. There is always one about there, but I
can step across the road and telephone to make sure."
  "Then I shall want two staunch men in case of resistance."
  "There will be two or three in the boat. What else?"
  "When we secure the men we shall get the treasure. I think that it
would be a pleasure to my friend here to take the box round to the
young lady to whom half of it rightfully belongs. Let her be the first
to open it. Eh, Watson?"
  "It would be a great pleasure to me."
  "Rather an irregular proceeding," said Jones, shaking his head.
"However, the whole thing is irregular, and I suppose we must wink
at it. The treasure must afterwards be handed over to the
authorities until after the official investigation."
  "Certainly. That is easily managed. One other point. I should much
like to have a few details about this matter from the lips of Jonathan
Small himself. You know I like to work the details of my cases out.
There is no objection to my having an unofficial interview with him,
either here in my rooms or elsewhere, as long as he is efficiently
guarded?"
  Well, you are master of the situation. I have had no proof yet of
the existence of this Jonathan Small. However, if you can catch him, I
don't see how I can refuse you an interview with him."
  "That is understood, then?"
  "Perfectly. Is there anything else?"
  "Only that I insist upon your dining with us. It will be ready in
half an hour. I have oysters and a brace of grouse, with something a
little choice in white wines.- Watson, you have never yet recognized
my merits as a housekeeper."
CH10
                       Chapter 10
                THE END OF THE ISLANDER

  Our meal was a merry one. Holmes could talk exceedingly well when he
chose, and that night he did choose. He appeared to be in a state of
nervous exaltation. I have never known him so brilliant. He spoke on a
quick succession of subjects- on miracle plays, on mediaeval
pottery, on Stradivarius violins, on the Buddhism of Ceylon, and on
the warships of the future- handling each as though he had made a
special study of it. His bright humour marked the reaction from his
black depression of the preceding days. Athelney Jones proved to be
a sociable soul in his hours of relaxation and faced his dinner with
the air of a bon vivant. For myself, I felt elated at the thought that
we were nearing the end of our task, and I caught something of
Holmes's gaiety. None of us alluded during dinner to the cause which
had brought us together.
  When the cloth was cleared Holmes glanced at his watch and filled up
three glasses with port.
  "One bumper," said he, "to the success of our little expedition. And
now it is high time we were off. Have you a pistol, Watson?"
  "I have my old service-revolver in my desk."
  You had best take it, then. It is well to be prepared. I see that
the cab is at the door. I ordered it for half-past six."
  It was a little past seven before we reached the Westminster wharf
and found our launch awaiting us. Holmes eyed it critically.
  "Is there anything to mark it as a police-boat?"
  "Yes, that green lamp at the side."
  "Then take it off."
  The small change was made, we stepped on board, and the ropes were
cast off. Jones, Holmes, and I sat in the stem. There was one man at
the rudder, one to tend the engines, and two burly police-inspectors
forward.
  "Where to?" asked Jones.
  "To the Tower. Tell them to stop opposite to Jacobson's Yard."
  Our craft was evidently a very fast one. We shot past the long lines
of loaded barges as though they were stationary. Holmes smiled with
satisfaction as we overhauled a river steamer and left her behind us.
  "We ought to be able to catch anything on the river," he said.
  "Well, hardly that. But there are not many launches to beat us."
  "We shall have to catch the Aurora, and she has a name for being a
clipper. I will tell you how the land lies, Watson. You recollect
how annoyed I was at being baulked by so small a thing?"
  "Yes."
  "Well, I gave my mind a thorough rest by plunging into a chemical
analysis. One of our greatest statesmen has said that a change of work
is the best rest. So it is. When I had succeeded in dissolving the
hydrocarbon which I was at work at, I came back to our problem of
the Sholtos, and thought the whole matter out again. My boys had
been up the river and down the river without result. The launch was
not at any landing-stage or wharf, nor had it returned. Yet it could
hardly have been scuttled to hide their traces, though that always
remained as a possible hypothesis if all else failed. I knew that this
man Small had a certain degree of low cunning, but I did not think him
capable of anything in the nature of delicate finesse. That is usually
a product of higher education. I then reflected that since he had
certainly been in London some time- as we had evidence that he
maintained a continual watch over Pondicherry Lodge- he could hardly
leave at a moment's notice, but would need some little time, if it
were only a day, to arrange his affairs. That was the balance of
probability, at any rate."
  "It seems to me to be a little weak," said I; "it is more probable
that he had arranged his affairs before ever he set out upon his
expedition."
  "No, I hardly think so. This lair of his would be too valuable a
retreat in case of need for him to give it up until he was sure that
he could do without it. But a second consideration struck me. Jonathan
Small must have felt that the peculiar appearance of his companion,
however much he may have top-coated him, would give rise to gossip,
and possibly be associated with this Norwood tragedy. He was quite
sharp enough to see that. They had started from their headquarters
under cover of darkness,. and he would wish to get back before it
was broad light. Now, it was past three o'clock, according to Mrs.
Smith, when they got the boat. It would be quite bright, and people
would be about in an hour or so. Therefore, I argued, they did not
go very far. They paid Smith well to hold his tongue, reserved his
launch for the final escape, and hurried to their lodgings with the
treasure-box. In a couple of nights, when they had time to see what
view the papers took, and whether there was any suspicion, they
would make their way under cover of darkness to some ship at Gravesend
or in the Downs, where no doubt they had already arranged for passages
to America or the Colonies."
  "But the launch? They could not have taken that to their lodgings."
  "Quite so. I argued that the launch must be no great way off, in
spite of its invisibility. I then put myself in the place of Small and
looked at it as a man of his capacity would. He would probably
consider that to send back the launch or to keep it at a wharf would
make pursuit easy if the police did happen to get on his track. How,
then, could he conceal the launch and yet have her at hand when
wanted? I wondered what I should do myself if I were in his shoes. I
could only think of one way of doing it. I might hand the launch
over to some boat-builder or repairer, with directions to make a
trifling change in her. She would then be removed to his shed or yard,
and so be effectually concealed, while at the same time I could have
her at a few hours' notice."
  "That seems simple enough."
  "It is just these very simple things which are extremely liable to
be overlooked. However, I determined to act on the idea. I started
at once in this harmless seaman's rig and inquired at all the yards
down the river. I drew blank at fifteen, but at the sixteenth-
Jacobson's- I learned that the Aurora had been handed over to them two
days ago by a wooden legged man, with some trivial directions as to
her rudder. `There ain't naught amiss with her rudder,' said the
foreman. `There she lies, with the red streaks.' At that moment who
should come down but Mordecai Smith, the missing owner. He was
rather the worse for liquor. I should not, of course, have known
him, but he bellowed out his name and the name of his launch. `I
want her to-night at eight o'clock,' said he- `eight o'clock sharp,
mind, for I have two gentlemen who won't be kept waiting.' They had
evidently paid him well, for he was very flush of money, chucking
shillings about to the men. I followed him some distance, but he
subsided into an alehouse; so I went back to the yard, and,
happening to pick up one of my boys on the way, I stationed him as a
sentry over the launch. He is to stand at the water's edge and wave
his handkerchief to us when they start. We shall be lying off in the
stream, and it will be a strange thing if we do not take men,
treasure, and all."
  "You have planned it all very neatly, whether they are the right men
or not," said Jones; "but if the affair were in my hands I should have
had a body of police in Jacobson's Yard and arrested them when they
came down."
  "Which would have been never. This man Small is a pretty shrewd
fellow. He would send a scout on ahead, and if anything made him
suspicious he would lie snug for another week."
  "But you might have stuck to Mordecai Smith, and so been led to
their hiding place," said I.
  "In that case I should have wasted my day. I think that it is a
hundred to one against Smith knowing where they live. As long as he
has liquor and good pay, why should he ask questions? They send him
messages what to do. No, I thought over every possible course, and
this is the best."
  While this conversation had been proceeding, we had been shooting
the long series of bridges which span the Thames. As we passed the
City the last rays of the sun were gilding the cross upon the summit
of St. Paul's. It was twilight before we reached the Tower.
  "That is Jacobson's Yard," said Holmes, pointing to a bristle of
masts and rigging on the Surrey side. "Cruise gently up and down
here under cover of this string of lighters." He took a pair of
night-glasses from his pocket and gazed some time at the shore. "I see
my sentry at his post," he remarked, "but no sign of a handkerchief."
  "Suppose we go downstream a short way and lie in wait for them,"
said Jones eagerly.
  We were all eager by this time, even the policemen and stokers,
who had a very vague idea of what was going forward.
  "We have no right to take anything for granted," Holmes answered.
"It is certainly ten to one that they go downstream, but we cannot
be certain. From this point we can see the entrance of the yard, and
they can hardly see us. It will be a clear night and plenty of
light. We must stay where we are. See how the folk swarm over yonder
in the gaslight."
  "They are coming from work in the yard."
  "Dirty-looking rascals, but I suppose every one has some little
immortal spark concealed about him. You would not think it, to look at
them. There is no a priori probability about it. A strange enigma is
man!"
  "Someone calls him a soul concealed in an animal," I suggested.
  "Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarks
that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the
aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example,
never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with
precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary,
but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician. But do I
see a handkerchief? Surely there is a white flutter over yonder."
  "Yes, it is your boy," I cried. "I can see him plainly."
  "And there is the Aurora," exclaimed Holmes, "and going like the
devil! Full speed ahead, engineer. Make after that launch with the
yellow light. By heaven, I shall never forgive myself if she proves to
have the heels of us!"
  She had slipped unseen through the yard-entrance and passed
between two or three small craft, so that she had fairly got her speed
up before we saw her. Now she was flying down the stream, near in to
the shore, going at a tremendous rate. Jones looked gravely at her and
shook his head.
  "She is very fast" he said. "I doubt if we shall catch her."
  "We must catch her!" cried Holmes between his teeth. "Heap it on,
stokers! Make her do all she can! If we burn the boat we must have
them!"
  We were fairly after her now. The furnaces roared, and the
powerful engines whizzed and clanked like a great metallic heart.
Her sharp, steep prow cut through the still river-water and sent two
rolling waves to right and to left of us. With every throb of the
engines we sprang and quivered like a living thing. One great yellow
lanter in our bows threw a long, flickering funnel of light in front
of us. Right ahead a dark blur upon the water showed where the
Aurora lay, and the swirl of white foam behind her spoke of the pace
at which she was going. We flashed past barges, steamers,
merchant-vessels, in and out, behind this one and round the other.
Voices hailed us out of the darkness, but still the Aurora thundered
on, and still we followed close upon her track.
  "Pile it on, men, pile it on!" cried Holmes, looking down into the
engine-room, while the fierce glow from below beat upon his eager,
aquiline face. "Get every pound of steam you can."
  "I think we gain a little," said Jones with his eyes on the Aurora.
  "I am sure of it" said I. "We shall be up with her in a very few
minutes."
  At that moment, however, as our evil fate would have it, a tug
with three barges in tow blundered in between us. It was only by
putting our helm hard down that we avoided a collision, and before
we could round them and recover our way the Aurora had gained a good
two hundred yards. She was still, however, well in view, and the
murky, uncertain twilight was settling into a clear, starlit night.
Our boilers were strained to their utmost, and the frail shell
vibrated and creaked with the fierce energy which was driving us
along. We had shot through the pool, past the West India Docks, down
the long Deptford Reach, and up again after rounding the Isle of Dogs.
The dull blur in front of us resolved itself now clearly into the
dainty Aurora. Jones turned our searchlight upon her, so that we could
plainly see the figures upon her deck. One man sat by the stern,
with something black between his knees, over which he stooped.
Beside him lay a dark mass, which looked like a Newfoundland dog.
The boy held the tiller, while against the red glare of the furnace
I could see old Smith, stripped to the waist and shovelling coals
for dear life. They may have had some doubt at first as to whether
we were really pursuing them, but now as we followed every winding and
turning which they took there could no longer be any question about
it. At Greenwich we were about three hundred paces behind them. At
Blackwall we could not have been more than two hundred and fifty. I
have coursed many creatures in many countries during my checkered
career, but never did sport give me such a wild thrill as this mad,
flying man-hunt down the Thames. Steadily we drew in upon them, yard
by yard. In the silence of the night we could hear the panting and
clanking of their machinery. The man in the stern still crouched
upon the deck, and his arms were moving as though he were busy,
while every now and then he would look up and measure with a glance
the distance which still separated us. Nearer we came and nearer.
Jones yelled to them to stop. We were not more than four boats-lengths
behind them, both boats flying at a tremendous pace. It was a clear
reach of the river, with Barking Level upon one side and the
melancholy Plumstead Marshes upon the other. At our hail the man in
the stern sprang up from the deck and shook his two clenched fists
at us, cursing the while in a high, cracked voice. He was a
good-sized, powerful man, and as he stood poising himself with legs
astride I could see that from the thigh downward there was but a
wooden stump upon the right side. At the sound of his strident,
angry cries, there was movement in the huddled bundle upon the deck.
It straightened itself into a little black man- the smallest I have
ever seen- with a great, misshapen head and a shock of tangled,
dishevelled hair. Holmes had already drawn his revolver, and I whipped
out mine at the sight of this savage, distorted creature. He was
wrapped in some sort of dark ulster or blanket, which left only his
face exposed, but that face was enough to give a man a sleepless
night. Never have I seen features so deeply marked with all bestiality
and cruelty. His small eyes glowed and burned with a sombre light, and
his thick lips were writhed back from his teeth, which grinned and
chattered at us with half animal fury.
  "Fire if he raises his hand," said Holmes quietly.
  We were within a boat's strength by this time, and almost within
touch of our quarry. I can see the two of them now as they stood,
the white man with his legs far apart, shrieking out curses, and the
unhallowed dwarf with his hideous face, and his strong yellow teeth
gnashing at us in the light of our lantern.
  It was well that we had so clear a view of him. Even as we looked he
plucked out from under his covering a short, round piece of wood, like
a school-ruler, and clapped it to his lips. Our pistols rang out
together. He whirled round, threw up his arms, and, with a kind of
choking cough, fell sideways into the stream. I caught one glimpse
of his venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of the waters.
At the same moment the wooden-legged man threw himself upon the rudder
and put it hard down, so that his boat made straight in for the
southern bank, while we shot past her stern, only clearing her by a
few feet. We were round after her in an instant, but she was already
nearly at the bank. It was a wild and desolate place, where the moon
glimmered upon a wide expanse of marsh-land, with pools of stagnant
water and beds of decaying vegetation. The launch, with a dull thud,
ran up upon the mud-bank, with her bow in the air and her stern
flush with the water. The fugitive sprang out, but his stump instantly
sank its whole length into the sodden soil. In vain he struggled and
writhed. Not one step could he possibly take either forward or
backward. He yelled in impotent rage and kicked frantically into the
mud with his other foot, but his struggles only bored his wooden pin
the deeper into the sticky bank. When we brought our launch
alongside he was so firmly anchored that it was only by throwing the
end of a rope over his shoulders that we were able to haul him out and
to drag him, like some evil fish, over our side. The two Smiths,
father and son, sat sullenly in their launch but came aboard meekly
enough when commanded. The Aurora herself we hauled off and made
fast to our stem. A solid iron chest of Indian workmanship stood
upon the deck. This, there could be no question, was the same that had
contained the ill-omened treasure of the Sholtos. There was no key,
but it was of considerable weight, so we transferred it carefully to
our own little cabin. As we steamed slowly upstream again, we
flashed our searchlight in every direction, but there was no sign of
the Islander. Somewhere in the dark ooze at the bottom of the Thames
lie the bones of that strange visitor to our shores.
  "See here," said Holmes, pointing to the wooden hatchway. "We were
hardly quick enough with our pistols." There, sure enough, just behind
where we had been standing, stuck one of those murderous darts which
we knew so well. It must have whizzed between us at the instant we
fired. Holmes smiled at it and shrugged his shoulders in his easy
fashion, but I confess that it turned me sick to think of the horrible
death which had passed so close to us that night.
CH11
                        Chapter 11
                 THE GREAT AGRA TREASURE

  Our captive sat in the cabin opposite to the iron box which he had
done so much and waited so long to gain. He was a sunburned
reckless-eyed fellow, with a network of lines and wrinkles all over
his mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life. There
was a singular prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man
who was not to be easily turned from his purpose. His age may have
been fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was thickly
shot with gray. His face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though
his heavy brows and aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen,
a terrible expression when moved to anger. He sat now with his
handcuffed hands upon his lap, and his head sunk upon his breast,
while he looked with his keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had
been the cause of his ill-doings. It seemed to me that there was
more sorrow than anger in his rigid and contained countenance. Once he
looked up at me with a gleam of something like humour in his eyes.
  "Well, Jonathan Small," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I am sorry
that it has come to this."
  "And so am I, sir," he answered frankly. "I don't believe that I can
swing over the job. I give you my word on the book that I never raised
hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound, Tonga, who
shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was
as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the little
devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done, and I
could not undo it again."
  "Have a cigar," said Holmes; "and you had best take a pull out of my
flask, for you are very wet. How could you expect so small and weak
a man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto and hold him
while you were climbing the rope?"
  "You seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir. The
truth is that I hoped to find the room clear. I knew the habits of the
house pretty well, and it was the time when Mr. Sholto usually went
down to his supper. I shall make no secret of the business. The best
defence that I can make is just the simple truth. Now, if it had
been the old major I would have swung for him with a light heart. I
would have thought no more of knifing him than of smoking this
cigar. But it's cursed hard that I should be lagged over this young
Sholto, with whom I had no quarrel whatever."
  "You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard.
He is going to bring you up to my rooms, and I shall ask you for a
true account of the matter. You must make a clean breast of it, for if
you do I hope that I may be of use to you. I think I can prove that
the poison acts so quickly that the man was dead before ever you
reached the room."
  "That he was, sir. I never got such a turn in my life as when I
saw him grinning at me with his head on his shoulder as I climbed
through the window. It fairly shook me, sir. I'd have half killed
Tonga for it if he had not scrambled off. That was how he came to
leave his club, and some of his darts too, as he tells me, which I
dare say helped to put you on our track; though how you kept on it
is more than I can tell. I don't feel no malice against you for it.
But it does seem a queer thing," he added with a bitter smile, "that
I, who have a fair claim to half a million of money, should spend
the first half of my life building a breakwater in the Andamans, and
am like to spend the other half digging drains at Dartmoor. It was
an evil day for me when first I clapped eyes upon the merchant
Achmet and had to do with the Agra treasure, which never brought
anything but a curse yet upon the man who owned it. To him it
brought murder, to Major Sholto it brought fear and guilt, to me it
has meant slavery for life."
  At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad face and heavy
shoulders into the tiny cabin.
  "Quite a family party," he remarked. "I think I shall have a pull at
that flask, Holmes. Well, I think we may all congratulate each
other. Pity we didn't take the other alive, but there was no choice. I
say, Holmes, you must confess that you cut it rather fine. It was
all we could do to overhaul her."
  "All is well that ends well," said Holmes. "But I certainly did
not know that the Aurora was such a clipper."
  "Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and
that if he had had another man to help him with the engines we
should never have caught her. He swears he knew nothing of this
Norwood business."
  "Neither he did," cried our prisoner- "not a word. I chose his
launch because I heard that she was a flier. We told him nothing;
but we paid him well, and he was to get something handsome if we
reached our vessel, the Esmeralda at Gravesend, outward bound for
the Brazils."
  "Well, if he has done no wrong we shall see that no wrong comes to
him. If we are pretty quick in catching our men, we are not so quick
in condemning them." It was amusing to notice how the consequential
Jones was already beginning to give himself airs on the strength of
the capture. From the slight smile which played over Sherlock Holmes's
face, I could see that the speech had not been lost upon him.
  "We will be at Vauxhall Bridge presently," said Jones, "and shall
land you, Dr. Watson, with the treasure-box. I need hardly tell you
that I am taking a very grave responsibility upon myself in doing
this. It is most irregular, but of course an agreement is an
agreement. I must, however, as a matter of duty, send an inspector
with you, since you have so valuable a charge. You will drive, no
doubt?"
  "Yes, I shall drive."
  "It is a pity there is no key, that we may make an inventory
first. You will have to break it open. Where is the key, my man?"
  "At the bottom of the river," said Small shortly.
  "Hum! There was no use your giving this unnecessary trouble. We have
had work enough already through you. However, Doctor, I need not
warn you to be careful. Bring the box back with you to the Baker
Street rooms. You will find us there, on our way to the station."
  They landed me at Vauxhall, with my heavy iron box, and with a
bluff, genial inspector as my companion. A quarter of an hour's
drive brought us to Mrs. Cecil Forresters. The servant seemed
surprised at so late a visitor. Mrs. Cecil Forrester was out for the
evening, she explained, and likely to be very late. Miss Morstan,
however, was in the drawing-room; so to the drawing-room I went, box
in hand, leaving the obliging inspector in the cab.
  She was seated by the open window, dressed in some sort of white
diaphanous material, with a little touch of scarlet at the neck and
waist. The soft light of a shaded lamp fell upon her as she leaned
back in the basket chair, playing over her sweet grave face, and
tinting with a dull, metallic sparkle the rich coils of her
luxuriant hair. One white arm and hand drooped over the side of the
chair, and her whole pose and figure spoke of an absorbing melancholy.
At the sound of my footfall she sprang to her feet, however, and a
bright flush of surprise and of pleasure coloured her pale cheeks.
  "I heard a cab drive up," she said. "I thought that Mrs. Forrester
had come back very early, but I never dreamed that it might be you.
What news have you brought me?"
  "I have brought something better than news," said I, putting down
the box upon the table and speaking jovially and boisterously,
though my heart was heavy within me. "I have brought you something
which is worth all the news in the world. I have brought you a
fortune."
  She glanced at the iron box.
  "Is that the treasure then?" she asked, coolly enough.
  "Yes, this is the great Agra treasure. Half of it is yours and
half is Thaddeus Sholto's. You will have a couple of hundred
thousand each. Think of that! An annuity of ten thousand pounds. There
will be few richer young ladies in England. Is it not glorious?"
  I think I must have been rather over-acting my delight, and that she
detected a hollow ring in my congratulations, for I saw her eyebrows
rise a little, and she glanced at me curiously.
  "If I have it," said she, "I owe it to you."
  "No, no," I answered, "not to me but to my friend Sherlock Holmes,
With all the will in the world, I could never have followed up a
clue which has taxed even his analytical genius. As it was, we very
nearly lost it at the last moment."
  "Pray sit down and tell me all about it, Dr. Watson," said she.
  I narrated briefly what had occurred since I had seen her last.
Holmes's new method of search, the discovery of the Aurora, the
appearance of Athelney Jones, our expedition in the evening, and the
wild chase down the Thames. She listened with parted lips and
shining eyes to my recital of our adventures. When I spoke of the dart
which had so narrowly missed us, she turned so white that I feared
that she was about to faint.
  "It is nothing," she said as I hastened to pour her out some
water. "I am all right again. It was a shock to me to hear that I
had placed my friends in such horrible peril."
  "That is all over," I answered. "It was nothing. I will tell you
no more gloomy details. Let us turn to something brighter. There is
the treasure. What could be brighter than that? I got leave to bring
it with me, thinking that it would interest you to be the first to see
it."
  "It would be of the greatest interest to me," she said. There was no
eagerness in her voice, however. It had struck her, doubtless, that it
might seem ungracious upon her part to be indifferent to a prize which
had cost so much to win.
  "What a pretty box!" she said, stooping over it. "This is Indian
work, I suppose?"
  "Yes; it is Benares metal-work."
  "And so heavy!" she exclaimed, trying to raise it. "The box alone
must be of some value. Where is the key?"
  "Small threw it into the Thames," I answered. "I must borrow Mrs.
Forrester's poker."
  There was in the front a thick and broad hasp, wrought in the
image of a sitting Buddha. Under this I thrust the end of the poker
and twisted it outward as a lever. The hasp sprang open with a loud
snap. With trembling fingers I flung back the lid. We both stood
gazing in astonishment. The box was empty!
  No wonder that it was heavy. The ironwork was two-thirds of an
inch thick all round. It was massive, well made, and solid, like a
chest constructed to carry things of great price, but not one shred or
crumb of metal or jewellery lay within it. It was absolutely and
completely empty.
  "The treasure is lost," said Miss Morstan calmly.
  As I listened to the words and realized what they meant, a great
shadow seemed to pass from my soul. I did not know how this Agra
treasure had weighed me down until now that it was finally removed. It
was selfish, no doubt, disloyal, wrong, but I could realize nothing
save that the golden barrier was gone from between us.
  "Thank God!" I ejaculated from my very heart.
  She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile.
  "Why do you say that?" she asked.
  "Because you are within my reach again," I said, taking her hand.
She did not withdraw it. "Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a
man loved a woman. Because this treasure, these riches, sealed my
lips. Now that they are gone I can tell you how I love you. That is
why I said, `Thank God.'"
  "Then I say `Thank God,' too she whispered as I drew her to my side.
  Whoever had lost a treasure, I knew that night that I had gained
one.
CH12
                         Chapter 12
              THE STRANGE STORY OF JONATHAN SMALL

  A very patient man was that inspector in the cab, for it was a weary
time before I rejoined him. His face clouded over when I showed him
the empty box.
  "There goes the reward!" said he gloomily. "Where there is no
money there is no pay. This night's work would have been worth a
tenner each to Sam Brown and me if the treasure had been there."
  "Mr. Thaddeus Sholto is a rich man," I said; "he will see that you
are rewarded, treasure or no."
  The inspector shook his head despondently, however.
  "It's a bad job," he repeated; "and so Mr. Athelney Jones will
think."
  His forecast proved to be correct, for the detective looked blank
enough when I got to Baker Street and showed him the empty box. They
had only just arrived, Holmes, the prisoner, and he, for they had
changed their plans so far as to report themselves at a station upon
the way. My companion lounged in his armchair with his usual
listless expression, while Small sat stolidly opposite to him with his
wooden leg cocked over his sound one. As I exhibited the empty box
he leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.
  "This is your doing, Small," said Athelney Jones angrily.
  "Yes, I have put it away where you shall never lay hand upon it," he
cried exultantly. "It is my treasure, and if I can't have the loot
I'll take damed good care that no one else does. I tell you that no
living man has any right to it, unless it is three men who are in
the Andaman convict-barracks and myself. I know now that I cannot have
the use of it, and I know that they cannot. I have acted all through
for them as much as for myself. It's been the sign of four with us
always. Well, I know that they would have had me do just what I have
done, and throw the treasure into the Thames rather than let it go
to kith or kin of Sholto or Morstan. It was not to make them rich that
we did for Achmet. You'll find the treasure where the key is and where
little Tonga is. When I saw that your launch must catch us, I put
the loot away in a safe place. There are no rupees for you this
journey."
  "You are deceiving us, Small," said Athelney Jones sternly; "if
you had wished to throw the treasure into the Thames, it would have
been easier for you to have thrown box and all."
  "Easier for me to throw and easier for you to recover," he
answered with a shrewd, side-long look. "The man that was clever
enough to hunt me down is clever enough to pick an iron box from the
bottom of a river. Now that they are scattered over five miles or
so, it may be a harder job. It went to my heart to do it though. I was
half mad when you came up with us. However, there's no good grieving
over it. I've had ups in my life, and I've had downs, but I've learned
not to cry over spilled milk."
  "This is a very serious matter, Small," said the detective. "If
you had helped justice, instead of thwarting it in this way, you would
have had a better chance at your trial."
  "Justice!" snarled the ex-convict. "A pretty justice! Whose loot
is this, if it is not ours? Where is the justice that I should give it
up to those who have never earned it? Look how I have earned it!
Twenty long years in that fever-ridden swamp, all day at work under
the mangrove-tree, all night chained up in the filthy convict-huts,
bitten by mosquitoes, racked with ague, bullied by every cursed
black-faced policeman who loved to take it out of a white man. That
was how I earned the Agra treasure, and you talk to me of justice
because I cannot bear to feel that I have paid this price only that
another may enjoy it! I would rather swing a score of times, or have
one of Tonga's darts in my hide, than live in a convict's cell and
feel that another man is at his ease in a palace with the money that
should be mine."
  Small had dropped his mask of stoicism, and all this came out in a
wild whirl of words, while his eyes blazed, and the handcuffs
clanked together with the impassioned movement of his hands. I could
understand, as I saw the fury and the passion of the man, that it
was no groundless or unnatural terror which had possessed Major Sholto
when he first learned that the injured convict was upon his track.
  "You forget that we know nothing of all this," said Holmes
quietly. "We have not heard your story, and we cannot tell how far
justice may originally have been on your side."
  "Well, sir, you have been very fair-spoken to me, though I can see
that I have you to thank that I have these bracelets upon my wrists.
Still, I bear no grudge for that. It is all fair and above-board. If
you want to hear my story, I have no wish to hold it back. What I
say to you is God's truth, every word of it. Thank you, you can put
the glass beside me here, and I'll put my lips to it if I am dry.
  "I am a Worcestershire man myself, born near Pershore. I dare say
you would find a heap of Smalls living there now if you were to
look. I have often thought of taking a look round there, but the truth
is that I was never much of a credit to the family, and I doubt if
they would be so very glad to see me. They were all steady,
chapel-going folk, small farmers, well known and respected over the
countryside, while I was always a bit of a rover. At last, however,
when I was about eighteen, I gave them no more trouble, for I got into
a mess over a girl and could only get out of it again by taking the
Queen's shilling and joining the Third Buffs, which was just
starting for India.
  "I wasn't destined to do much soldiering, however. I had just got
past the goose-step and learned to handle my musket, when I was fool
enough to go swimming in the Ganges. Luckily for me, my company
sergeant, John Holder, was in the water at the same time, and he was
one of the finest swimmers in the service. A crocodile took me just as
I was halfway across and nipped off my right leg as clean as a surgeon
could have done it, just above the knee. What with the shock and the
loss of blood, I fainted, and should have been drowned if Holder had
not caught hold of me and paddled for the bank. I was five months in
hospital over it, and when at last I was able to limp out of it with
this timber toe strapped to my stump, I found myself invalided out
of the Army and unfitted for any active occupation.
  "I was, as you can imagine, pretty down on my luck at this time, for
I was a useless cripple, though not yet in my twentieth year. However,
my misfortune, soon proved to be a blessing in disguise. A man named
Abel White, who had come out there as an indigo-planter, wanted an
overseer to look after his coolies and keep them up to their work.
He happened to be a friend of our colonel's, who had taken an interest
in me since the accident. To make a long story short, the colonel
recommended me strongly for the post, and, as the work was mostly to
be done on horseback, my leg was no great obstacle, for I had enough
thigh left to keep a good grip on the saddle. What I had to do was
to ride over the plantation, to keep an eye on the men as they worked,
and to report the idlers. The pay was fair, I had comfortable
quarters, and altogether I was content to spend the remainder of my
life in indigo-planting. Mr. Abel White was a kind man, and he would
often drop into my little shanty and smoke a pipe with me, for white
folk out there feel their hearts warm to each other as they never do
here at home.
  "Well, I was never in luck's way long. Suddenly, without a note of
warning, the great mutiny broke upon us. One month India lay as
still and peaceful, to all appearance, as Surrey or Kent; the next
there were two hundred thousand black devils let loose, and the
country was a perfect hell. Of course you know all about it,
gentlemen- a deal more than I do, very like, since reading is not in
my line. I only know what I saw with my own eyes. Our plantation was
at a place called Muttra, near the border of the Northwest
Provinces. Night after night the whole sky was alight with the burning
bungalows, and day after day we had small companies of Europeans
passing through our estate with their wives and children, on their way
to Agra, where were the nearest troops. Mr. Abel White was an
obstinate man. He had it in his head that the affair had been
exaggerated, and that it would blow over as suddenly as it had
sprung up. There he sat on his veranda, drinking whisky-pegs and
smoking cheroots, while the country was in a blaze about him. Of
course we stuck by him, I and Dawson, who, with his wife, used to do
the book-work and the managing. Well, one fine day the crash came. I
had been away on a distant plantation and was riding slowly home in
the evening, when my eye fell upon something all huddled together at
the bottom of a steep nullah. I rode down to see what it was, and
the cold struck through my heart when I found it was Dawson's wife,
all cut into ribbons, and half eaten by jackals and native dogs. A
little further up the road Dawson himself was lying on his face, quite
dead, with an empty revolver in his hand, and four sepoys lying across
each other in front of him. I reined up my horse, wondering which
way I should turn; but at that moment I saw thick smoke curling up
from Abel White's bungalow and the flames beginning to burst through
the roof. I knew then that I could do my employer no good, but would
only throw my own life away if I meddled in the matter. From where I
stood I could see hundreds of the black fiends, with their red coats
still on their backs, dancing and howling round the burning house.
Some of them pointed at me, and a couple of bullets sang past my head:
so I broke away across the paddy-fields, and found myself late at
night safe within the walls at Agra.
  "As it proved, however, there was no great safety there, either. The
whole country was up like a swarm of bees. Wherever the English
could collect in little bands they held just the ground that their
guns commanded. Everywhere else they were helpless fugitives. It was a
fight of the millions against the hundreds; and the cruellest part
of it was that these men that we fought against, foot, horse, and
gunners, were our own picked troops, whom we had taught and trained,
handling our own weapons and blowing our own bugle-calls. At Agra
there were the Third Bengal Fusiliers, some Sikhs, two troops of
horse, and a battery of artillery. A volunteer corps of clerks and
merchants had been formed, and this I joined, wooden leg and all. We
went out to meet the rebels at Shahgunge early in July, and we beat
them back for a time, but our powder gave out, and we had to fall back
upon the city.
  Nothing but the worst news came to us from every side- which is
not to be wondered at, for if you look at the map you will see that we
were right in the heart of it. Lucknow is rather better than a hundred
miles to the east, and Cawnpore about as far to the south. From
every point on the compass there was nothing but torture and murder
and outrage.
  "The city of Agra is a great place, swarming with fanatics and
fierce devil worshippers of all sorts. Our handful of men were lost
among the narrow, winding streets. Our leader moved across the
river, therefore, and took up his position in the old fort of Agra.
I don't know if any of you gentlemen have ever read or heard
anything of that old fort. It is a very queer place- the queerest that
ever I was in, and I have been in some rum corners, too. First of
all it is enormous in size. I should think that the enclosure must
be acres and acres. There is a modern part, which took all our
garrison, women, children, stores, and everything else, with plenty of
room over. But the modern part is nothing like the size of the old
quarter, where nobody goes, and which is given over to the scorpions
and the centipedes. It is all full of great deserted halls, and
winding passages, and long corridors twisting in and out, so that it
is easy enough for folk to get lost in it. For this reason it was
seldom that anyone went into it, though now and again a party with
torches might go exploring.
  "The river washes along the front of the old fort, and so protects
it, but on the sides and behind there are many doors, and these had to
be guarded, of course, in the old quarter as well as in that which was
actually held by our troops. We were short-handed, with hardly men
enough to man the angles of the building and to serve the guns. It was
impossible for us, therefore, to station a strong guard at every one
of the innumerable gates. What we did was to organize a central
guardhouse in the middle of the fort, and to leave each gate under the
charge of one white man and two or three natives. I was selected to
take charge during certain hours of the night of a small isolated door
upon the south-west side of the building. Two Sikh troopers were
placed under my command, and I was instructed if anything went wrong
to fire my musket, when I might rely upon help coming at once from the
central guard. As the guard was a good two hundred paces away,
however, and as the space between was cut up into a labyrinth of
passages and corridors, I had great doubts as to whether they could
arrive in time to be of any use in case of an actual attack.
  "Well, I was pretty proud at having this small command given me,
since I was a raw recruit, and a game-legged one at that. For two
nights I kept the watch with my Punjabees. They were tall,
fierce-looking chaps, Mahomet Singh and Abdullah Khan by name, both
old fighting men, who had borne arms against us at Chilian Wallah.
They could talk English pretty well, but I could get little out of
them. They preferred to stand together, and jabber all night in
their queer Sikh lingo. For myself, I used to stand outside the
gateway, looking down on the broad, winding river and on the twinkling
lights of the great city. The beating of drums, the rattle of tomtoms,
and the yells and howls of the rebels, drunk with opium and with bang,
were enough to remind us all night of our dangerous neighbours
across the stream. Every two hours the officer of the night used to
come round to all the posts to make sure that all was well.
  "The third night of my watch was dark and dirty, with a small
driving rain. It was dreary work standing in the gateway hour after
hour in such weather. I tried again and again to make my Sikhs talk,
but without much success. At two in the morning the rounds passed
and broke for a moment the weariness of the night. Finding that my
companions would not be led into conversation, I took out my pipe
and laid down my musket to strike the match. In an instant the two
Sikhs were upon me. One of them snatched my firelock up and levelled
it at my head, while the other held a great knife to my throat and
swore between his teeth that he would plunge it into me if I moved a
step.
  "My first thought was that these fellows were in league with the
rebels, and that this was the beginning of an assault. If our door
were in the hands of the sepoys the place must fall, and the women and
children be treated as they were in Cawnpore. Maybe you gentlemen
think that I am just making out a case for myself, but I give you my
word that when I thought of that, though I felt the point of the knife
at my throat, I opened my mouth with the intention of giving a scream,
if it was my last one, which might alarm the main guard. The man who
held me seemed to know my thoughts; for, even as I braced myself to
it, he whispered: `Don't make a noise. The fort is safe enough.
There are no rebel dogs on this side of the river.' There was the ring
of truth in what he said, and I knew that if I raised my voice I was a
dead man. I could read it in the fellow's brown eyes. I waited,
therefore, in silence, to see what it was that they wanted from me.
  "`Listen to me, sahib,' said the taller and fiercer of the pair, the
one whom they called Abdullah Khan. `You must either be with us now,
or you must be silenced forever. The thing is too great a one for us
to hesitate. Either you are heart and soul with us on your oath on the
cross of the Christians, or your body this night shall be thrown
into the ditch, and we shall pass over to our brothers in the rebel
army. There is no middle way. Which is it to be- death or life? We can
only give you three minutes to decide, for the time is passing, and
all must be done before the rounds come again.'
  "`How can I decide?' said I. `You have not told me what you want
of me. But I tell you now that if it is anything against the safety of
the fort I will have no truck with it, so you can drive home your
knife and welcome.'
  "`It is nothing against the fort,' said he. `We only ask you to do
that which your countrymen come to this land for. We ask you to be
rich. If you will be one of us this night, we will swear to you upon
the naked knife, and by the threefold oath which no Sikh was ever
known to break, that you shall have your fair share of the loot. A
quarter of the treasure shall be yours. We can say no fairer.'
  "`But what is the treasure then?' I asked. `I am as ready to be rich
as you can be if you will but show me how it can be done.'
  "`You will swear, then,' said he, `by the bones of your father, by
the honour of your mother, by the cross of your faith, to raise no
hand and speak no word against us, either now or afterwards?'
  "`I will swear it,' I answered, `Provided that the fort is not
endangered.'
  "`Then my comrade and I will swear that you shall have a quarter
of the treasure which shall be equally divided among the four of us.'
  "`There are but three,' said I.
  "`No; Dost Akbar must have his share. We can tell the tale to you
while we wait them. Do you stand at the gate, Mahomet Singh, and
give notice of their coming. The thing stands thus, sahib, and I
tell it to you because I know that an oath is binding upon a
Feringhee, and that we may trust you. Had you been a lying Hindoo,
though you had sworn by all the gods in their false temples, your
blood would have been upon the knife and your body in the water. But
the Sikh knows the Englishman, and the Englishman knows the Sikh.
Hearken, then, to what I have to say.
  "`There is a rajah in the northern provinces who has much wealth,
though his lands are small. Much has come to him from his father,
and more still he has set by himself, for he is of a low nature and
hoards his gold rather than spend it. When the troubles broke out he
would be friends both with the lion and the tiger- with the sepoy
and with the Company's raj. Soon, however, it seemed to him that the
white men's day was come, for through all the land he could hear of
nothing but of their death and their overthrow. Yet, being a careful
man, he made such plans that, come what might, half at least of his
treasure should be left to him. That which was in gold and silver he
kept by him in the vaults of his palace, but the most precious
stones and the choicest pearls that he had he put in an iron box and
sent it by a trusty servant, who, under the guise of a merchant,
should take it to the fort at Agra, there to lie until the land is
at peace. Thus, if the rebels won he would have his money, but if
the Company conquered, his jewels would be saved to him. Having thus
divided his hoard, he threw himself into the cause of the sepoys,
since they were strong upon his borders. By his doing this, mark
you, sahib, his property becomes the due of those who have been true
to their salt.
  "`This pretended merchant, who travels under the name of Achmet,
is now in the city of Agra and desires to gain his way into the
fort. He has with him as travelling-companion my foster-brother Dost
Akbar, who knows his secret. Dost Akbar has promised this night to
lead him to a side-postern of the fort, and has chosen this one for
his purpose. Here he will come presently, and here he will find
Mahomet Singh and myself awaiting him. The place is lonely, and none
shall know of his coming. The world shall know the merchant Achmet
no more, but the great treasure of the rajah shall be divided among
us. What say you to it, sahib?'
  "In Worcestershire the life of a man seems a great and a sacred
thing; but it is very different when there is fire and blood all round
you, and you have been used to meeting death at every turn. Whether
Achmet the merchant lived or died was a thing as light as air to me,
but at the talk about the treasure my heart turned to it, and I
thought of what I might do in the old country with it, and how my folk
would stare when they saw their ne'er-do-weel coming back with his
pockets full of gold moidores. I had, therefore, already made up my
mind. Abdullah Khan, however, thinking that I hesitated, pressed the
matter more closely.
  "`Consider, sahib,' said he, `that if this man is taken by the
commandant he will be hung or shot, and his jewels taken by the
government, so that no man will be a rupee the better for them. Now,
since we do the taking of him, why should we not do the rest as
well? The jewels will be as well with us as in the Company's
coffers. There will be enough to make every one of us rich men and
great chiefs. No one can know about the matter, for here we are cut
off from all men. What could be better for the purpose? Say again,
then, sahib, whether you are with us, or if we must look upon you as
an enemy.'
  "`I am with you heart and soul,' said I.
  "`It is well,' he answered, handing me back my firelock. `You see
that we trust you, for your word, like ours, is not to be broken. We
have now only to wait for my brother and the merchant.'
  "`Does your brother know, then, of what you will do?' I asked.
  "`The plan is his. He has devised it. We will go to the gate and
share the watch with Mahomet Singh.'
  "The rain was still falling steadily, for it was just the
beginning of the wet season. Brown, heavy clouds were drifting
across the sky, and it was hard to see more than a stonecast. A deep
moat lay in front of our door, but the water was in places nearly
dried up, and it could easily be crossed. It was strange to me to be
standing there with those two wild Punjabees waiting for the man who
was coming to his death.
  "Suddenly my eye caught the glint of a shaded lantern at the other
side of the moat. It vanished among the mound-heaps, and then appeared
again coming slowly in our direction.
  "`Here they are!' I exclaimed.
  "`You will challenge him, sahib, as usual,' whispered Abdullah.
`Give him no cause for fear. Send us in with him, and we shall do
the rest while you stay here on guard. Have the lanter ready to
uncover, that we may be sure that it is indeed the man.'
  "The light had flickered onward, now stopping and now advancing,
until I could see two dark figures upon the other side of the moat.
I let them scramble down the sloping bank, splash through the mire,
and climb halfway up to the gate before I challenged them.
  "`Who goes there?' said I in a subdued voice.
  "`Friends,' came the answer. I uncovered my lanter and threw a flood
of light upon them. The first was an enormous Sikh with a black
beard which swept nearly down to his cummerband. Outside of a show I
have never seen so tall a man. The other was a little fat, round
fellow with a great yellow turban and a bundle in his hand, done up in
a shawl. He seemed to be all in a quiver with fear, for his hands
twitched as if he had the ague, and his head kept turning to left
and right with two bright little twinkling eyes, like a mouse when
he ventures out from his hole. It gave me the chills to think of
killing him, but I thought of the treasure, and my heart set as hard
as a flint within me. When he saw my white face he gave a little
chirrup of joy and came running up towards me.
  "`Your protection, sahib,' he panted, `your protection for the
unhappy merchant Achmet. I have travelled across Raipootana, that I
might seek the shelter of the fort at Agra. I have been robbed and
beaten and abused because I have been the friend of the Company. It is
a blessed night this when I am once more in safety! and my poor
possessions.'
  "`What have you in the bundle?' I asked.
  "`An iron box,' he answered, `which contains one or two little
family matters which are of no value to others but which I should be
sorry to lose. Yet I am not a beggar; and I shall reward you, young
sahib, and your governor also if he will give me the shelter I ask.'
  "I could not trust myself to speak longer with the man. The more I
looked at his fat, frightened face, the harder did it seem that we
should slay him in cold blood. It was best to get it over.
  "`Take him to the main guard,' said I. The two Sikhs closed in
upon him on each side, and the giant walked behind, while they marched
in through the dark gateway. Never was a man so compassed round with
death. I remained at the gateway with the lanter.
  "I could hear the measured tramp of their footsteps sounding through
the lonely corridors. Suddenly it ceased, and I heard voices and a
scuffle, with the sound of blows. A moment later there came, to my
horror, a rush of footsteps coming in my direction, with a loud
breathing of a running man. I turned my lanter down the long
straight passage, and there was the fat man, running like the wind,
with a smear of blood across his face, and close at his heels,
bounding like a tiger, the great black-bearded Sikh, with a knife
flashing in his hand. I have never seen a man run so fast as that
little merchant. He was gaining on the Sikh, and I could see that if
he once passed me and got to the open air he would save himself yet.
My heart softened to him, but again the thought of his treasure turned
me hard and bitter. I cast my firelock between his legs as he raced
past and he rolled twice over like a shot rabbit. Ere he could stagger
to his feet the Sikh was upon him and buried his knife twice in his
side. The man never uttered moan nor moved muscle but lay where he had
fallen. I think myself that he may have broken his neck with the fall.
You see, gentlemen, that I am keeping my promise. I am telling you
every word of the business just exactly as it happened, whether it
is in my favour or not."
  He stopped and held out his manacled hands for the whisky and
water which Holmes had brewed for him. For myself, I confess that I
had now conceived the utmost horror of the man not only for this
cold-blooded business in which he had been concerned but even more for
the somewhat flippant and careless way in which he narrated it.
Whatever punishment was in store for him, I felt that he might
expect no sympathy from me. Sherlock Holmes and Jones sat with their
hands upon their knees, deeply interested in the story but with the
same disgust written upon their faces. He may have observed it, for
there was a touch of defiance in his voice and manner as he proceeded.
  "It was all very bad, no doubt," said he. "I should like to know how
many fellows in my shoes would have refused a share of this loot
when they knew that they would have their throats cut for their pains.
Besides, it was my life or his when once he was in the fort. If he had
got out, the whole business would come to light, and I should have
been court-martialled and shot as likely as not, for people were not
very lenient at a time like that."
  "Go on with your story," said Holmes shortly.
  "Well, we carried him in, Abdullah, Akbar, and I. A fine weight he
was, too, for all that he was so short. Mahomet Singh was left to
guard the door. We took him to a place which the Sikhs had already
prepared. It was some distance off, where a winding passage leads to a
great empty hall, the brick walls of which were all crumbling to
pieces. The earth floor had sunk in at one place, making a natural
grave, so we left Achmet the merchant there, having first covered
him over with loose bricks. This done, we all went back to the
treasure.
  "It lay where he had dropped it when he was first attacked. The
box was the same which now lies open upon your table. A key was hung
by a silken cord to that carved handle upon the top. We opened it, and
the light of the lanter gleamed upon a collection of gems such as I
have read of and thought about when I was a little lad at Pershore. It
was blinding to look upon them. When we had feasted our eyes we took
them all out and made a list of them. There were one hundred and
forty-three diamonds of the first water, including one which has
been called, I believe, `the Great Mogul,' and is said to be the
second largest stone in existence. Then there were ninety-seven very
fine emeralds, and one hundred and seventy rubies, some of which,
however, were small. There were forty carbuncles, two hundred and
ten sapphires, sixty-one agates, and a great quantity of beryls,
onyxes, cats'-eyes, turquoises, and other stones, the very names of
which I did not know at the time, though I have become more familiar
with them since. Besides this, there were nearly three hundred very
fine pearls, twelve of which were set in a gold coronet. By the way,
these last had been taken out of the chest, and were not there when
I recovered it.
  "After we had counted our treasures we put them back into the
chest and carried them to the gateway to show them to Mahomet Singh.
Then we solemnly renewed our oath to stand by each other and be true
to our secret. We agreed to conceal our loot in a safe place until the
country should be at peace again, and then to divide it equally
among ourselves. There was no use dividing it at present, for if
gems of such value were found upon us it would cause suspicion, and
there was no privacy in the fort nor any place where we could keep
them. We carried the box, therefore, into the same hall where we had
buried the body, and there, under certain bricks in the best-preserved
wall, we made a hollow and put our treasure. We made careful note of
the place, and next day I drew four plans, one for each of us, and put
the sign of the four of us at the bottom, for we had sworn that we
should each always act for all, so that none might take advantage.
That is an oath that I can put my hand to my heart and swear that I
have never broken.
  "Well, there's no use my telling you gentlemen what came of the
Indian mutiny. After Wilson took Delhi and Sir Colin relieved
Lucknow the back of the business was broken. Fresh troops came pouring
in, and Nana Sahib made himself scarce over the frontier. A flying
column under Colonel Greathed came round to Agra and cleared the
Pandies away from it. Peace seemed to be settling upon the country,
and we four were beginning to hope that the time was at hand when we
might safely go off with our shares of the plunder. In a moment,
however, our hopes were shattered by our being arrested as the
murderers of Achmet.
  "It came about in this way. When the rajah put his jewels into the
hands of Achmet he did it because he knew that he was a trusty man.
They are suspicious folk in the East, however: so what does this rajah
do but take a second even more trusty servant and set him to play
the spy upon the first. This second man was ordered never to let
Achmet out of his sight, and he followed him like his shadow. He
went after him that night and saw him pass through the doorway. Of
course he thought he had taken refuge in the fort and applied for
admission there himself next day, but could find no trace of Achmet.
This seemed to him so strange that he spoke about it to a sergeant
of guides, who brought it to the ears of the commandant. A thorough
search was quickly made, and the body was discovered. Thus at the very
moment that we thought that all was safe we were all four seized and
brought to trial on a charge of murder- three of us because we had
held the gate that night, and the fourth because he was known to
have been in the company of the murdered man. Not a word about the
jewels came out at the trial, for the rajah had been deposed and
driven out of India: so no one had any particular interest in them.
The murder, however, was clearly made out, and it was certain that
we must all have been concerned in it. The three Sikhs got penal
servitude for life, and I was condemned to death, though my sentence
was afterwards commuted to the same as the others.
  "It was rather a queer position that we found ourselves in then.
There we were all four tied by the leg and with precious little chance
of ever getting out again, while we each held a secret which might
have put each of us in a palace if we could only have made use of
it. It was enough to make a man eat his heart out to have to stand the
kick and the cuff of every petty jack-in-office, to have rice to eat
and water to drink, when that gorgeous fortune was ready for him
outside, just waiting to be picked up. It might have driven me mad;
but I was always a pretty stubborn one, so I just held on and bided my
time.
  "At last it seemed to me to have come. I was changed from Agra to
Madras, and from there to Blair Island in the Andamans. There are very
few white convicts at this settlement, and, as I had behaved well from
the first, I soon found myself a sort of privileged person. I was
given a hut in Hope Town, which is a small place on the slopes of
Mount Harriet, and I was left pretty much to myself. It is a dreary,
fever-stricken place, and all beyond our little clearings was infested
with wild cannibal natives, who were ready enough to blow a poisoned
dart at us if they saw a chance. There was digging and ditching and
yam-planting, and a dozen other things to be done, so we were busy
enough all day, though in the evening we had a little time to
ourselves. Among other things, I learned to dispense drugs for the
surgeon, and picked up a smattering of his knowledge. All the time I
was on the lookout for a chance to escape; but it is hundreds of miles
from any other land, and there is little or no wind in those seas:
so it was a terribly difficult job to get away.
  "The surgeon, Dr. Somerton, was a fast, sporting young chap, and the
other young officers would meet in his rooms of an evening and play
cards. The surgery, where I used to make up my drugs, was next to
his sitting-room, with a small window between us. Often, if I felt
lonesome, I used to turn out the lamp in the surgery, and then,
standing there, I could hear their talk and watch their play. I am
fond of a hand at cards myself, and it was almost as good as having
one to watch the others. There was Major Sholto, Captain Morstan,
and Lieutenant Bromley Brown, who were in command of the native
troops, and there was the surgeon himself, and two or three
prison-officials, crafty old hands who played a nice sly safe game.
A very snug little party they used to make.
  "Well, there was one thing which very soon struck me, and that was
that the soldiers used always to lose and the civilians to win.
Mind, I don't say there was anything unfair, but so it was. These
prison-chaps had done little else than play cards ever since they
had been at the Andamans, and they knew each other's game to a
point, while the others just played to pass the time and threw their
cards down anyhow. Night after night the soldiers got up poorer men,
and the poorer they got the more keen they were to play. Major
Sholto was the hardest hit. He used to pay in notes and gold at first,
but soon it came to notes of hand and for big sums. He sometimes would
win for a few deals just to give him heart, and then the luck would
set in against him worse than ever. All day he would wander about as
black as thunder, and he took to drinking a deal more than was good
for him.
  One night he lost even more heavily than usual. I was sitting in
my hut when he and Captain Morstan came stumbling along on the way
to their quarters. They were bosom friends, those two, and never far
apart. The major was raving about his losses.
  "`It's all up, Morstan,' he was saying as they passed my hut. `I
shall have to send in my papers. I am a ruined man.'
  "`Nonsense, old chap!' said the other, slapping him upon the
shoulder. `I've had a nasty facer myself, but-' That was all I could
hear, but it was enough to set me thinking.
  "A couple of days later Major Sholto was strolling on the beach:
so I took the chance of speaking to him.
  "`I wish to have your advice, Major,' said I.
  "`Well, Small, what is it?' he asked, taking his cheroot from his
lips.
  "`I wanted to ask you, sir,' said I, `who is the proper person to
whom hidden treasure should be handed over. I know where half a
million worth lies, and, as I cannot use it myself, I thought
perhaps the best thing that I could do would be to hand it over to the
proper authorities, and then perhaps they would get my sentence
shortened for me.'
  "`Half a million, Small?' he gasped, looking hard at me to see if
I was in earnest.
  "`Quite that, sir- in jewels and pearls. It lies there ready for
anyone. And the queer thing about it is that the real owner is
outlawed and cannot hold property, so that it belongs to the first
comer.'
  "`To government, Small,' he stammered, `to government.' But he
said it in a halting fashion, and I knew in my heart that I had got
him.
  "`You think, then, sir, that I should give the information to the
governor general?' said I quietly.
  "`Well, well, you must not do anything rash, or that you might
repent. Let me hear all about it, Small. Give me the facts.'
  "`I told him the whole story, with small changes, so that he could
not identify the places. When I had finished he stood stock still
and full of thought. I could see by the twitch of his lip that there
was a struggle going on within him.
  "`This is a very important matter, Small,' he said at last. `You
must not say a word to anyone about it, and I shall see you again
soon.'
  "Two nights later he and his friend, Captain Morstan, came to my hut
in the dead of the night with a lantern.
  "`I want you just to let Captain Morstan hear that story from your
own lips, Small,' said he.
  "I repeated it as I had told it before.
  "`It rings true, eh?' said he. `It's good enough to act upon?'
  "Captain Morstan nodded.
  "`Look here, Small,' said the major. `We have been talking it
over, my friend here and I, and we have come to the conclusion that
this secret of yours is hardly a government matter, after all, but
is a private concern of your own, which of course you have the power
of disposing of as you think best. Now the question is, What price
would you ask for it? We might be inclined to take it up, and at least
look into it, if we could agree as to terms.' He tried to speak in a
cool, careless way, but his eyes were shining with excitement and
greed.
  "`Why, as to that, gentlemen,' I answered, trying also to be cool
but feeling as excited as he did, `there is only one bargain which a
man in my position can make. I shall want you to help me to my
freedom, and to help my three companions to theirs. We shall then take
you into partnership and give you a fifth share to divide between
you.'
  "`Hum!' said he. `A fifth share! That is not very tempting.'
  "`It would come to fifty thousand apiece,' said I.
  "`But how can we gain your freedom? You know very well that you
ask an impossibility.'
  "`Nothing of the sort,' I answered. `I have thought it all out to
the last detail. The only bar to our escape is that we can get no boat
fit for the voyage, and no provisions to last us for so long a time.
There are plenty of little yachts and yawls at Calcutta or Madras
which would serve our turn well. Do you bring one over. We shall
engage to get aboard her by night, and if you will drop us on any part
of the Indian coast you will have done your part of the bargain.'
  "`If there were only one,' he said.
  "`None or all,' I answered. `We have sworn it. The four of us must
always act together.'
  "`You see, Morstan,' said he, `Small is a man of his word. He does
not flinch from his friends. I think we may very well trust him.'
  "`It's a dirty business,' the other answered. `Yet, as you say,
the money will save our commissions handsomely.'
  "`Well, Small,' said the major, `we must, I suppose, try and meet
you. We must first, of course, test the truth of your story. Tell me
where the box is hid, and I shall get leave of absence and go back
to India in the monthly relief-boat to inquire into the affair.'
  "`Not so fast,' said I, growing colder as he got hot. `I must have
the consent of my three comrades. I tell you that it is four or none
with us.'
  "`Nonsense!' he broke in. `What have three black fellows to do
with our agreement?'
  "`Black or blue,' said I, `they are in with me, and we all go
together.'
  "Well, the matter ended by a second meeting, at which Mahomet Singh,
Abdullah Klan, and Dost Akbar were all present. We talked the matter
over again, and at last we came to an arrangement. We were to
provide both the officers with charts of the part of the Agra fort,
and mark the place in the wall where the treasure was hid. Major
Sholto was to go to India to test our story. If he found the box he
was to leave it there, to send out a small yacht provisioned for a
voyage, which was to lie off Rutland Island, and to which we were to
make our way, and finally to return to his duties. Captain Morstan was
then to apply for leave of absence, to meet us at Agra, and there we
were to have a final division of the treasure, he taking the major's
share as well as his own. All this we sealed by the most solemn
oaths that the mind could think or the lips utter. I sat up all
night with paper and ink, and by the morning I had the two charts
all ready, signed with the sign of four- that is, of Abdullah,
Akbar, Mahomet, and myself.
  "Well, gentlemen, I weary you with my long story, and I know that my
friend Mr. Jones is impatient to get me safely stowed in chokey.
I'll make it as short as I can. The villain Sholto went off to
India, but he never came back again. Captain Morstan showed me his
name among a list of passengers in one of the mail-boats very
shortly afterwards. His uncle had died, leaving him a fortune, and
he had left the Army, yet he could stoop to treat five men as he had
treated us. Morstan went over to Agra shortly afterwards and found, as
we expected, that the treasure was indeed gone. The scoundrel had
stolen it all without carrying out one of the conditions on which we
had sold him the secret. From that I lived only for vengeance. I
thought of it by day and I nursed it by night. It became an
overpowering, absorbing passion with me. I cared nothing for the
law- nothing for the gallows. To escape, to track down Sholto, to have
my hand upon his throat- that was my one thought. Even the Agra
treasure had come to be a smaller thing in my mind than the slaying of
Sholto.
  "Well, I have set my mind on many things in this life, and never one
which I did not carry out. But it was weary years before my time came.
I have told you that I had picked up something of medicine. One day
when Dr. Somerton was down with a fever a little Andaman Islander
was picked up by a convict-gang in the woods. He was sick to death and
had gone to a lonely place to die. I took him in hand, though he was
as venomous as a young snake, and after a couple of months I got him
all right and able to walk. He took a kind of fancy to me then, and
would hardly go back to his woods, but was always hanging about my
hut. I learned a little of his lingo from him, and this made him all
the fonder of me.
  "Tonga- for that was his name- was a fine boatman and owned a big,
roomy canoe of his own. When I found that he was devoted to me and
would do anything to serve me, I saw my chance of escape. I talked
it over with him. He was to bring his boat round on a certain night to
an old wharf which was never guarded, and there he was to pick me
up. I gave him directions to have several gourds of water and a lot of
yams, cocoanuts, and sweet potatoes.
  "He was staunch and true, was little Tonga. No man ever had a more
faithful mate. At the night named he had his boat at the wharf. As
it chanced, however there was one of the convict-guard down there- a
vile Pathan who had never missed a chance of insulting and injuring
me. I had always vowed vengeance, and now I had my chance. It was as
if fate had placed him in my way that I might pay my debt before I
left the island. He stood on the bank with his back to me, and his
carbine on his shoulder. I looked about for a stone to beat out his
brains with, but none could I see.
  "Then a queer thought came into my head and showed me where I
could lay my hand on a weapon. I sat down in the darkness and
unstrapped my wooden leg. With three long hops I was on him. He put
his carbine to his shoulder, but I struck him full, and knocked the
whole front of his skull in. You can see the split in the wood now
where I hit him. We both went down together, for I could not keep my
balance; but when I got up I found him still lying quiet enough. I
made for the boat, and in an hour we were well out at sea. Tonga had
brought all his earthly possessions with him, his arms and his gods.
Among other things, he had a long bamboo spear, and some Andaman
cocoanut matting, with which I made a sort of a sail. For ten days
we were beating about, trusting to luck, and on the eleventh we were
picked up by a trader which was going from Singapore to Jiddah with
a cargo of Malay pilgrims. They were a rum crowd, and Tonga and I soon
managed to settle down among them. They had one very good quality:
they let you alone and asked no questions.
  "Well, if I were to tell you all the adventures that my little
chum and I went through, you would not thank me, for I would have
you here until the sun was shining. Here and there we drifted about
the world, something always turning up to keep us from London. All the
time, however, I never lost sight of my purpose. I would dream of
Sholto at night. A hundred times I have killed him in my sleep. At
last, however, some three or four years ago, we found ourselves in
England. I had no great difficulty in finding where Sholto lived,
and I set to work to discover whether he had realized on the treasure,
or if he still had it. I made friends with someone who could help
me- I name no names, for I don't want to get anyone else in a hole-
and I soon found that he still had the jewels. Then I tried to get
at him in many ways; but he was pretty sly and had always two
prize-fighters, besides his sons and his khitmutgar, on guard over
him.
  "One day, however, I got word that he was dying. I hurried at once
to the garden, mad that he should slip out of my clutches like that,
and, looking through the window, I saw him lying in his bed, with
his sons on each side of him. I'd have come through and taken my
chance with the three of them, only even as I looked at him his jaw
dropped, and I knew that he was gone. I got into his room that same
night, though, and I searched his papers to see if there was any
record of where he had hidden our jewels. There was not a line,
however, so I came away, bitter and savage as a man could be. Before I
left I bethought me that if I ever met my Sikh friends again it
would be a satisfaction to know that I had left some mark of our
hatred; so I scrawled down the sign of the four of us, as it had
been on the chart, and I pinned it on his bosom. It was too much
that he should be taken to the grave without some token from the men
whom he had robbed and befooled.
  "We earned a living at this time by my exhibiting poor Tonga at
fairs and other such places as the black cannibal. He would eat raw
meat and dance his wardance: so we always had a hateful of pennies
after a day's work. I still heard all the news from Pondicherry Lodge,
and for some years there was no news to hear, except that they were
hunting for the treasure. At last, however, came what we had waited
for so long. The treasure had been found. It was up at the top of
the house in Mr. Bartholomew Sholto's chemical laboratory. I came at
once and had a look at the place, but I could not see how, with my
wooden leg, I was to make my way up to it. I learned, however, about a
trapdoor in the roof, and also about Mr. Sholto's supper-hour. It
seemed to me that I could manage the thing easily through Tonga. I
brought him out with me with a long rope wound round his waist. He
could climb like a cat, and he soon made his way through the roof, but
as ill luck would have it, Bartholomew Sholto was still in the room,
to his cost. Tonga thought he had done something very clever in
killing him, for when I came up by the rope I found him strutting
about as proud as a peacock. Very much surprised was he when I made at
him with the rope's end and cursed him for a little bloodthirsty
imp. I took the treasure box and let it down, and then slid down
myself, having first left the sign of the four upon the table to
show that the jewels had come back at last to those who had most right
to them. Tonga then pulled up the rope, closed the window, and made
off the way that he had come.
  "I don't know that I have anything else to tell you. I had heard a
waterman speak of the speed of Smith's launch, the Aurora, so I
thought she would be a handy craft for our escape. I engaged with
old Smith, and was to give him a big sum if he got us safe to our
ship. He knew, no doubt, that there was some screw loose, but he was
not in our secrets. All this is the truth, and if I tell it to you,
gentlemen, it is not to amuse you- for you have not done me a very
good turn- but it is because I believe the best defence I can make
is just to hold back nothing, but let all the world know how badly I
have myself been served by Major Sholto, and how innocent I am of
the death of his son."
  "A very remarkable account," said Sherlock Holmes. "A fitting windup
to an extremely interesting case. There is nothing at all new to me in
the latter part of your narrative except that you brought your own
rope. That I did not know. By the way, I had hoped that Tonga had lost
all his darts; yet he managed to shoot one at us in the boat."
  "He had lost them all, sir, except the one which was in his
blow-pipe at the time."
  "Ah, of course," said Holmes. "I had not thought of that."
  "Is there any other point which you would like to ask about?"
asked the convict affably.
  "I think not, thank you," my companion answered.
  "Well, Holmes," said Athelney Jones, "you are a man to be
humoured, and we all know that you are a connoisseur of crime; but
duty is duty, and I have gone rather far in doing what you and your
friend asked me. I shall feel more at ease when we have our
story-teller here safe under lock and key. The cab still waits, and
there are two inspectors downstairs. I am much obliged to you both for
your assistance. Of course you will be wanted at the trial. Good-night
to you."
  "Good-night, gentlemen both," said Jonathan Small.
  "You first, Small," remarked the wary Jones as they left the room.
"I'll take particular care that you don't club me with your wooden
leg, whatever you may have done to the gentleman at the Andaman
Isles."
  "Well, and there is the end of our little drama," I remarked,
after we had sat some time smoking in silence. "I fear that it may
be the last investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying
your methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honour to accept me as a
husband in prospective."
  He gave a most dismal groan.
  "I feared as much," said he. "I really cannot congratulate you."
  I was a little hurt.
  "Have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my choice?" I asked.
  "Not at all. I think she is one of the most charming young ladies
I ever met and might have been most useful in such work as we have
been doing. She had a decided genius that way; witness the way in
which she preserved that Agra plan from all the other papers of her
father. But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is
opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I
should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment."
  "I trust," said I, laughing, "that my judgment may survive the
ordeal. But you look weary."
  "Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag
for a week."
  "Strange," said I, "how terms of what in another man I should call
laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigour."
  "Yes," he answered, "there are in me the makings of a very fine
loafer, and also of a pretty spry sort of a fellow. I often think of
those lines of old Goethe:

  "Schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf, Denn zum
wurdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff.

By the way, apropos of this Norwood business, you see that they had,
as I surmised, a confederate in the house, who could be none other
than Lal Rao, the butler: so Jones actually has the undivided honour
of having caught one fish in his great haul."
  "The division seems rather unfair," I remarked. "You have done all
the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the
credit, pray what remains for you?"
  "For me," said Sherlock Holmes, "there still remains the
cocaine-bottle." And he stretched his long white hand up for it.


                             -THE END-
