Adventure 1 of His Last Bow by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by David Clark can be found at verysmallrocks.io or at bgcoffee.net. Thank you for listening. Adventure 1 The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge Chapter 1 The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day towards the end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had received a telegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. He made no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stood in front of the fire afterwards, with a thoughtful face, smoking his pipe, and casting an uncasional glance at the message.  I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters, said he. How do you define the word grotesque? Strange, remarkable, I suggested. He shook his head at my definition. There is surely something more than that, said he. Some underlying suggestion of the tragic and the terrible. If you cast your mind back to some of those narratives with which you have afflicted a long-suffering public, you will recognize how often the grotesque has deepened into the criminal. Think of that little affair of the red-headed men. That was grotesque enough in the outset, and yet it ended in a desperate attempt at robbery. Or again, there was that most grotesque affair of the five orange pips, which led straight to a murderous conspiracy. The word puts me on the alert. Have you it there? I asked. He read the telegram aloud. Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience? May I consult you? Scott Eccles, post-office, Charing Cross. Man or a woman, I asked. Oh, man, of course! No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram. She would have come. Will you see him? My dear Watson, you know how bored I have been since we locked up Colonel Carruthers. My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built. Life is commonplace. The papers are sterile. Audacity and romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world. Can you ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem, however trivial it may prove? But here, unless I am mistaken, is our client. A measured step was heard upon the stairs, and a moment later, a stout, tall, gray-whiskered and solemnly respectable person was ushered into the room. His life history was written in his heavy features and pompous manner. From his spats to his gold-rimmed spectacles, he was a conservative, a churchman, a good citizen, orthodox and conventional to the last degree. But some amazing experience had disturbed his native composure and left its traces in his bristling hair, his flushed, angry cheeks and his flurried, excited manner. He plunged instantly into his business. I have had a most singular and unpleasant experience, Mr. Holmes," said he. Never in my life have I been placed in such a situation. It is most improper, most outrageous. I must insist upon some explanation." He swelled and puffed in his anger. Pray, sit down, Mr. Scott Eccles, said Holmes in a soothing voice. May I ask, in the first place, why you came to me at all? Well, sir, it did not appear to be a matter which concerned the police, and yet, when you have heard the facts, you must admit that I would not leave it where it was. Private detectives are a class with whom I have absolutely no sympathy, but nonetheless, having heard your name, quite so. But in the second place, why did you not come at once? Holmes glanced at his watch. It is a quarter past two, he said. Your telegram was dispatched about one, but no one can glance at your toilet and attire without seeing that your disturbance dates from the moment of your waking. Our client smoothed down his unbrushed hair and felt his unshaven chin. You are right, Mr. Holmes. I never gave a thought to my toilet. I was only too glad to get out of such a house, but I have been running round making inquiries before I came to you. I went to the house agents, you know, and they said that Mr. Garcia's rent was paid up all right, and that everything was in order at Wisteria Lodge. Come, come, sir," said Holmes, laughing, you're like my friend Dr. Watson, who has a bad habit of telling his stories wrong and foremost. Please arrange your thoughts and let me know in their due sequence exactly what those events are which have sent you out unbrushed and unkempt with dress boots and waistcoat buttoned a rye in search of advice and assistance. Our client looked down with a rueful face at his own unconventional appearance. I'm sure it must look very bad, Mr. Holmes, and I'm not aware that in my whole life such a thing has ever happened before, but I will tell you the whole queer business, and when I have done so you will admit, I am sure, that there has been enough to excuse me. But his narrative was nipped in the bud. There was a bustle outside, and Mrs. Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust and official-looking individuals, one of whom was well known to us as Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an energetic gallant and, within his limitations, a capable officer. He shook hands with Holmes, and introduced his comrade as Inspector Baines of the Surrey Constabulary. We are hunting together, Mr. Holmes, and our trail lay in this direction. He turned his bulldog eyes upon our visitor. Are you Mr. John Scott Eccles of Popham House Lee? I am. We've been following you about all the morning. You traced him through the telegram, no doubt, said Holmes. Mr. Holmes, we picked up the scent at Charing Cross Post Office and came on here. But why did you follow me? What do you want? We wish a statement, Mr. Scott Eccles, as to the events which led up to the death last night of Mr. Aloysius Garcia of Wisteriolodge near Asia. Our client had set up with staring eyes, and every tinge of colour struck from his astonished face. Dead? Did you say he was dead? Yes, sir, he's dead. But how? An accident? Murder, if ever there was one upon earth. Good God! This is awful! You don't mean... You don't mean that I'm suspected? A letter of yours was found in the dead man's pocket, and we know by it that you had planned to pass last night at his house. So I did. Oh, you did, did you? Out came the official notebook. Wait a bit, Gregson, said Sherlock Holmes. All you desire is a plain statement, is it not? And it is my duty to warn Mr. Scott Eccles that it may be used against him. Mr. Eccles was going to tell us about it when you entered the room, I think. Watson, a brandy and soda would do him no harm. Now, sir, I suggest that you take no notice of this addition to your audience, and that you proceed with your narrative exactly as you would have done had you never been interrupted.  With a dubious glance at the inspector's notebook he plunged at once into his extraordinary statement. I am a bachelor, said he, and being of a sociable turn I cultivate a large number of friends. Among these are the family of a retired brewer called Melville, living at Abomol Mansion, Kensington. It was at his table that I met some weeks ago a young fellow named Garcia. He was, I understand, of Spanish descent, and connected in some way with the Embassy. He spoke perfect English, was pleasing in his manners and as good-looking a man as ever I saw in my life. In some way we struck up quite a friendship, this young fellow and I. He seemed to take a fancy to me from the first, and within two days of our meeting he came to see me at Lee. One thing led to another, and it ended in his inviting me out to spend a few days at his house with Stereo Lodge between Isher and Ockshot. That day evening I went to Isher to fulfil this engagement. He had described his household to me before I went there. He lived with a faithful servant, a countryman of his own, who looked after all his needs. This fellow could speak English and did his housekeeping for him. Then there was a wonderful cook. He said a half-breed whom he had picked up in his travels, who could serve an excellent dinner. I remember that he remarked what a queer household it was to find in the heart of Surrey, and that I agreed with him, though it has proved a good deal queerer than I thought. I drove to the place, about two miles on the south side of Isher. The house was a fair-sized one, standing back from the road with a curving drive which was banked with high evergreen shrubs. It was an old tumble-down building in a crazy state of disrepair. When the trap pulled up on the grass-grown drive in front of the blotched and weather-stained door, I had doubts as to my wisdom in visiting a man whom I knew so slightly. He opened the door himself, however, and greeted me with a great show of cordiality. I was handed over to the man-servant, a melancholy, swarthy individual who led the way, my bag in his hand, to my bedroom. The whole place was depressing. Our dinner was tet-à-tet, and though my host did his best to be entertaining, his thought seemed to continually wonder, and he talked so vaguely and wildly that I could hardly understand him. He continually drummed his fingers on the table, gnawed his nails, and gave other signs of nervous impatience. The dinner itself was neither well-served nor well-cooked, and the gloomy presence of the taciturn servant did not help to enliven us. I can assure you that many times in the course of the evening I wished that I could invent some excuse which would take me back to Lee. One thing comes back to my memory which may have a bearing upon the business that you two gentlemen are investigating. I thought nothing of it at the time. Near the end of dinner a note was handed in by the servant. I noticed that after my host had read it he seemed even more distrae and strange than ever. He gave up all pretence at conversation and sat smoking endless cigarettes, lost in his own thoughts, but he made no remark as to the contents. About eleven I was glad to go to bed. Sometime later Garcia looked in at my door. The room was dark at the time and asked me if I had a rung. I said I had not. He apologised for having disturbed me so late, saying that it was nearly one o'clock. I dropped off after this and slept soundly all night. And now I come to the amazing part of my tale. When I woke it was broad daylight. I glanced at my watch and the time was nearly nine. I had particularly asked to be called at eight, so I was very much astonished at this forgetfulness. I sprang up and rang for the servant. There was no response. I rang again and again with the same result. Then I came to the conclusion that the bell was out of order. I huddled on my clothes and hurried downstairs in an exceedingly bad temper to order some hot water. You can imagine my surprise when I found that there was no one there. I shouted in the hall. There was no answer. Then I ran from room to room. All were deserted. My host had shown me which was his bedroom the night before, so I knocked at the door. No reply. I turned the handle and walked in. The room was empty and the bed had never been slept in. He'd gone with the rest. The foreign host, the foreign footman, the foreign cook, all had vanished in the night. There was the end of my visit to Wisteria Lodge. Sherlock Holmes was rubbing his hands and chuckling as he added this bizarre incident to his collection of strange episodes. Your experiences, so far as I know, perfectly unique, said he. May I ask, sir, what you did then? I was furious. My first idea was that I had been the victim of some absurd practical joke. I packed my things, banged the hall door behind me, and set off for Isha with my bag in my hand. I called at Alan Brothers, the chief land agents in the village, and found that it was from this firm that the villa had been rented. It struck me that the whole proceeding could hardly be for the purpose of making a fool of me, and that the main object must be to get out of the rent. It is late in March, so quarter-day is at hand, but this theory would not work. The agent was obliged to me for my warning, but told me that the rent had been paid in advance. Then I made my way to town, and called at the Spanish Embassy. The man was unknown there. After this I went to see Melville, at whose house I had first met Garcia, but I found that he really knew rather less about him than I did. Finally, when I got your reply to my wire, I came out to you, since I gather that you are a person who gives advice in difficult cases. But now, Mr. Inspector, I understand from what you said when you entered the room that you can carry the story on, and that some tragedy had occurred I can assure you that every word I have said is the truth, and that, outside of what I have told you, I know absolutely nothing about the fate of this man. My only desire is to help the law in every possible way. I'm sure of it, Mr. Scott Eccles, I'm sure of it," said Inspector Gregson in a very amiable tone. I'm bound to say that everything which you've said agrees very closely with the facts as they've come to our notice. For example, there was that note which arrived during dinner. Did you chance to observe what became of it? Yes, I did. A Garcia rolled it up and threw it into the fire. What do you say to that, Mr. Baines? The country detective was a stout, puffy red man whose face was only redeemed from grossness by two extraordinarily bright eyes, almost hidden behind the heavy creases of cheek and brow. With a slow smile he drew a folded and discoloured scrap of paper from his pocket. It was a dog great, Mr. Holmes, and he overpitched it. I picked this out, unburned from the back of it. Holmes smiled his appreciation. You must have examined the house very carefully to find a single pellet of paper. I did, Mr. Holmes. It's my way. Shall I read it, Mr. Gregson? The Londoner nodded. The note is written upon ordinary cream-laid paper without watermark. It is a quarter sheet. The paper is cut off in two snips with a short bladed scissors. It's been folded over three times and sealed with purple wax, put on hurriedly and pressed down with some flat oval object. It is addressed to Mr. Garcia, with Stereolodge. It says, Our own colours green and white, green open, white shut, main stair, first corridor, seventh right, green bays, Godspeed D. It is a woman's writing done with a sharp-pointed pen, but the address is either done with another pen or by someone else. It is thicker and bolder, as you see. A very remarkable note said Holmes, glancing it over. I must compliment you, Mr. Baines, upon your attention to detail in your examination of it. A few trifling points might perhaps be added. The oval seal is undoubtedly a plain sleeve link. What else is of such a shape? The scissors were bent nail-scissors. Short as the two snips are, you can distinctly see the same slight curve in each. The country detective chuckled. I thought I had squeezed all the juice out of it, but I see there was a little over, he said. I'm bound to say, but I make nothing of the note except that there was something on hand, and that a woman, as usual, was at the bottom of it. Mr. Scott Eccles had fidgeted in his seat during this conversation. I'm glad you found the note, since it corroborates my story, said he, but I beg to point out that I have not yet heard what has happened to Mr. Garcia, nor what has become of his household. As to Garcia, said Gregson, that is easily answered. He was found dead this morning upon Ockshot Common, nearly a mile from his own. His head had been smashed to pulp by heavy blows of a sandbag or some such instrument, which had crushed rather than wounded. It is a lonely corner, and there is no house within a quart of a mile of the spot. He had apparently been struck down first from behind, but his assailant had gone on beaten him long after he was dead. He was a most furious assault. There are no footsteps, nor any clue, to the criminals. Robbed? No, there was no attempt at robbery. This is very painful, very painful and terrible, said Mr. Scott Eccles in a quarrelous voice. But it is really uncommonly hard on me. I had nothing to do with my host going off upon an octurnal excursion and meeting so sad an end. How do I come to be mixed up with the case? Very simple, sir," Inspector Baines answered. The only document found in the pocket of the deceased was a letter from you saying that you would be with him on the night of his death. It was the envelope of this letter which gave us the dead man's name and address. It was after nine this morning when we reached his house and found neither you nor anyone else inside it. I wired to Mr. Gregson to run you down in London while he examined Wisteria Lodge. Then I came into town, joined Mr. Gregson, and here we are. I think now," said Gregson, rising, we best put this matter into an official shape. You'll come round with us to the station, Mr. Scott Eccles, and let us have your statement in writing. Certainly, I will come at once, but I retain your services, Mr. Holmes. I desire you to spare no expense and no pains to get to the truth." My friend turned to the country inspector. I suppose that you have no objection to my collaborating with you, Mr. Baines. Highly honoured, sir, I'm sure. You appear to have been very prompt and businesslike in all that you have done. Was there any clue, may I ask, as to the exact hour that the man met his death? He'd been there since one o'clock. There was rain about that time, and his death had certainly been before the rain. But that is perfectly impossible, Mr. Baines, cried our client. His voice is unmistakable. I could swear to it that it was he who addressed me in my bedroom at that very hour. Remarkable, but by no means impossible, said Holmes, smiling. You have a clue, asked Gregson. On the face of it, the case is not a very complex one, though it certainly presents some novel and interesting features. A further knowledge of facts is necessary before I would venture to give a final and definite opinion. By the way, Mr. Baines, did you find anything remarkable besides this note in your examination of the house? The detective looked at my friend in a singular way. There were, said he, one or two very remarkable things. Perhaps when I finished at the police station you would care to come out and give me your opinion of them. I am entirely at your service, said Sherlock Holmes, ringing the bell. You will show these gentlemen out, Mrs. Hudson, and kindly send the boy with this telegram. He's to pay a five-shelling reply. He sat for some time in silence after our visitors had left. Holmes smoked hard, with his brows drawn down over his keen eyes, and his head thrust forward in the eager way characteristic of the man. Well, Watson, he asked, turning suddenly upon me, what do you make of it? I can make nothing of this mystification of Scott Eccles. But the crime—well, taken with the disappearance of the man's companions, I should say that they were in some way concerned in the murder and fled from justice. That is certainly a possible point of view. On the face of it you must admit, however, that it is very strange that his two servants should have been in a conspiracy against him and should have attacked him on the one night when he had a guest. They had him alone at their mercy every other night in the week. Then why did they fly? Quite so. Why did they fly? There is a big fact. Another big fact is the remarkable experience of our client, Scott Eccles. Now, my dear Watson, is it beyond the limits of human ingenuity to furnish an explanation which would cover both of these big facts? If it were one which would also admit of the mysterious note, with its very curious phraseology, why then it would be worth accepting as a temporary hypothesis? Since the fresh facts which come to our knowledge all fit themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually become a solution. But what is our hypothesis?  You must admit, my dear Watson, that the idea of a joke is impossible. There were grave events afoot, as the sequel showed, and the coaxing of Scott Eccles to Wisteria Lodge had some connection with them. But what possible connection? Let us take it link by link. There is on the face of it something unnatural about this strange and sudden friendship between the young Spaniard and Scott Eccles. It was the former who forced the pace. He called upon Eccles at the other end of London on the very day after he first met him, and he kept in close touch with him until he got him down to Isha. Now what did he want with Eccles? What could Eccles supply? I see no charm in the man. He is not particularly intelligent, not a man likely to be congenial to a quick-witted Latin. Why then was he picked out from all the other people whom Garcia met as particularly suited to his purpose? Is he any one outstanding quality? I say that he has. He is the very type of conventional British respectability, and the very man as a witness to impress another Britain. You saw yourself how neither of the inspectors dreamed of questioning his statement, extraordinary as it was. But what was he to witness? Nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they gone another way. That is how I read the matter. I see he might have proved an alibi. Exactly, my dear Watson, he might have proved an alibi. We all suppose, for arguments' sake, that the household of Wisteria Lodge are Confederates in some design. The attempt, whatever it may be, is to come off, we will say, before one o'clock. By some juggling of the clocks it is quite possible that they may have got Scott Eccles to bed earlier than he thought. But in any case it is likely that when Garcia went out of his way to tell him that it was one, it was really not more than twelve. If Garcia could do whatever he had to do and be back by the hour mentioned, he had evidently a powerful reply to any accusation. Garcia was this irreproachable Englishman, ready to swear in any court of law that the accused was in the house all the time. It was an insurance against the worst. Yes, yes, I see that, but how about the disappearance of the others? I have not all my facts yet, but I do not think there are any insuperable difficulties. Still, it is an error to argue in front of your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories. And the message? How did it run? Our own colours, green and white. Sounds like racing.  That is clearly a signal. Main stair, first corridor, seventh right, green bays. This is an asignation. We may find a jealous husband at the bottom of it all. It was clearly a dangerous quest. She would not have said Godspeed had it not been so. D, that should be our guide. The man was a Spaniard. I suggest that D stands for Dolores, a common female name in Spain. Good Watson, very good, but quite inadmissible. A Spaniard would write to a Spaniard in Spanish. The writer of this note is certainly English. Well, we can only possess our soul in patience until this excellent inspector come back for us. Meanwhile, we can thank our lucky fate which has rescued us for a few short hours from the insufferable fatigues of idleness. An answer had arrived to Holmes' telegram before our sorry officer had returned. Holmes read it and was about to place it in his notebook when he caught a glimpse of my expectant face. He tossed it across with a laugh. We are moving in exalted circles, said he. The telegram was a list of names and addresses. Lord Harringby, the Dingle. Sir George Follyott, Ockshot Towers. Mr. Heinz Heinz J.P. Pirdley Place. Mr. James Baker Williams, Fort and Old Hall. Mr. Henderson, High Gable. Reverend Joshua Stone, Nether Walsling. This is a very obvious way of limiting our field of operations. At Holmes, no doubt Baines, with his methodical mind, has already adopted some similar plan. I don't quite understand. Well, my dear fellow, we have already arrived at the conclusion that the message received by Garcia at dinner was an appointment or an assignation. Now, if the obvious reading of it is correct and in order to keep the trist one has to ascend a main stair and seek the seventh door in a corridor, it is perfectly clear that the house is a very large one. It is equally certain that this house cannot be more than a mile or two from Ockshot, since Garcia was walking in that direction and hoped, according to my reading of the facts, to be back in Wisteria Lodge in time to avail himself of an alibi which would only be valid up to one o'clock. As the number of large houses close to Ockshot must be limited, I adopted the obvious method of sending to the agents mentioned by Scott Eccles and obtaining a list of them. Here they are in this telegram, and the other end of our tangled scheme must lie among them. It was nearly six o'clock before we found ourselves in the pretty surrey village of Isha with Inspector Baines as our companion. Holmes and I had taken things for the night and found comfortable quarters at the bull. Finally, we set out in the company of the detective on our visit to Wisteria Lodge. It was a cold, dark March evening with a sharp wind and the fine rain beating upon our faces, a fit setting for the wild common over which our road passed and the tragic goal to which it led us. End of chapter one. Chapter two of part one of his last bow by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter two, The Tiger of San Pedro. A cold and melancholy walk of a couple of miles brought us to a high wooden gate which opened into a gloomy avenue of chestnuts. The curved and shadowed drive led us to a low, dark house, pitch black against a slate-colored sky. From the front window upon the left of the door, there peeped a glimmer of a feeble light. There's a constable in possession, said Baines. I'll knock at the window. He stepped across the grass plot and tapped with his hand on the pane. Through the fogged glass, I dimly saw a man spring up from a chair beside the fire and heard a sharp cry from within the room. An instant later, a white-faced, hard-breathing policeman had opened the door, the candle wavering in his trembling hand. What's the matter, Walters? asked Baines sharply. The man mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and gave a long sigh of relief. I'm glad you've come, sir. It's been a long evening, and I don't think my nerve is as good as it was. Your nerve, Walters? I should not have thought you had a nerve in your body.  Then when you tapped at the window, I thought it had come again. That what had come again? The devil, sir. For all I know, it was at the window. What was at the window and when? It was just about two hours ago. The light was just fading. I was sitting, reading in the chair. I don't know what made me look up, but there was a face looking in at me through the lower pane. Lord, sir, what a face it was. I'll see it in my dreams. Tat-tat, Walters. This is not talk for a police constable.  And there's no use to deny it. It wasn't black, sir, nor was it white, nor any color that I know, but a kind of queer shade, like clay with a splash of milk in it. Then there was the size of it. It was twice yours, sir.  I tell you, sir, I couldn't move a finger, nor get my breath till it whisked away and it was gone. Out I ran and threw the shrubbery, but thank God there was no one there. If I didn't know you were a good man, Walters, I should put a black mark against you for this. If it were the devil himself, a constable on duty should never thank God that he could not lay his hands upon him. I suppose the whole thing is not a vision and a touch of nerves. That, at least, is very easily settled, said Holmes, lighting his little pocket lantern. Yes, he reported after a short examination of the grass bed. A number 12 shoe, I should say. If he was all on the same scale as his foot, he must certainly have been a giant. What became of him? He seems to have broken through the shrubbery and made for the road. Well, said the inspector with a grave and thoughtful face, whoever he may have been and whatever he may have wanted, he's gone for the present and we have more immediate things to attend to. Now, Mr. Holmes, with your permission, I will show you round the house. The various bedrooms and sitting-rooms had yielded nothing to a careful search. Apparently the tenants had brought little or nothing with them and all the furniture down to the smallest details had been taken over with the house. A good deal of clothing with the stamp of Marx and Coe, High Holborn, had been left behind. Telegraphic inquiries had been already made which showed that Marx knew nothing of his customer, say that he was a good payer. Odds and ends, some pipes, a few novels, two of them in Spanish. An old-fashioned pin-fire of Oliver and a guitar were among the personal property. Nothing in all this, said Baines, stalking, gambling hand from room to room. But now, Mr. Holmes, I invite your attention to the kitchen. It was a gloomy, high-ceiling room at the back of the house with a straw litter in one corner which served apparently as a bed for the cook. The table was piled with half-eaten dishes and dirty plates, the debris of last night's dinner. Look at this, said Baines, or what you make of it! He held up his candle before an extraordinary object which stood at the back of the dresser. It was so wrinkled and shrunken and withered that it was difficult to say what it might have been. One could but say that it was black and leathery and that it bore some resemblance to a dwarfish human figure. At first, as I examined it, I thought that it was a mummified Negro baby and then it seemed a very twisted and ancient monkey. Finally, I was left in doubt as to whether it was animal or human. A double band of white shells were strung around the centre of it. Very interesting, very interesting indeed, said Holmes, peering at this sinister relic. Anything more? In silence, Baines led the way to the sink and held forward his candle. The limbs and body of some large white bird torn savagely to pieces with the feathers still on were littered all over it. Holmes pointed to the wattles on the severed head. A white cock, said he, most interesting. It is really a very curious case. But Mr. Baines had kept his most sinister exhibit to the last. From under the sink he drew a zinc pail which contained a quantity of blood. Then from the table he took a platter heaped with small pieces of charred bone. Something has been killed and something has been burned. We raked all these out of the fire. We had a doctor in this morning. He says that they are not human. Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands. I must congratulate you, Inspector, on handling so distinctive and instructive a case. Your powers, if I may say so, without offence, seem superior to your opportunities. Inspector Baines's small eyes twinkled with pleasure. You're right, Mr. Holmes. We stagnate in the provinces. A case of this sort gives a man a chance and I hope that I shall take it. What do you make of these bones? A lamb, I should say, or a kid. And the white cock? Curious, Mr. Baines, very curious. I should say almost unique. Yes, sir, there must have been some very strange people with some very strange ways in this house. One of them is dead. Did his companions follow him and kill him? If they did, we should have them, for every port is watched. But my own views are different. Yes, sir, my own views are very different. You have a theory, then? And I'll work it myself, Mr. Holmes. It's only due to my own credit to do so. Your name is made. But I still to make mine. I should be glad to be able to say afterwards that I had solved it without your help. Holmes laughed good-humidly. Oh, well, well, Inspector, said he. Do you follow your path and I will follow mine? My results are always very much at your service if you care to apply to me for them. I think that I have seen all that I wish in this house and that my time may be more profitably employed elsewhere. Au revoir and good luck. I could tell by numerous subtle signs which might have been lost upon any one but myself that Holmes was on a hot scent. As impassive as ever to the casual observer, there were nonetheless a subdued eagerness and suggestion of tension in his brightened eyes and brisker manner which assured me that the game was afoot. After his habit he said nothing, and after mine I asked no questions. Sufficient for me to share the sport and lend my humble help to capture without distracting that intent brain with needless interruption. All would come round to me in due time. I waited, therefore, but to my ever-depending disappointment I waited in vain. Day succeeded day and my friend took no step forward. One morning he spent in town and I learned from a casual reference that he had visited the British Museum. Say for this one excursion, he spent his days in long and often solitary walks, or in chatting with a number of village gossips whose acquaintance he had cultivated. I'm sure Watson, a week in the country, will be invaluable to you, he remarked. It is very pleasant to see the first green shoots upon the hedges and the catkins on the hazels once again, with a spud, a tin box, and an elementary book on botany. There are instructive days to be spent. He prowled about with this equipment himself, but it was a poor show of plants which he would bring back of an evening. Occasionally in our rambles we came across Inspector Bain's.  He said little about the case, but from that little we gathered that he also was not dissatisfied at the course of events. I must admit, however, that I was somewhat surprised when, some five days after the crime, I opened my morning paper to find in large letters. The ox-shot mystery, a solution, arrest of supposed assassin. Holmes sprang in his chair as if he'd been stung when I read the headlines. By Jove, he cried, you don't mean that Bain's has got him? Apparently, said I as I read the following report. Great excitement was caused in Esha and the neighbouring district when it was learned late last night that an arrest had been effected in connection with the ox-shot murder. It will be remembered that Mr. Garcia of Wisteria Lodge was found dead on ox-shot common, his body showing signs of extreme violence, in that on the same night his servant and his cook fled, which appeared to show their participation in the crime. It was suggested, but never proved that the deceased gentleman may have had valuables in the house, and that their abstraction was the motive of the crime. Every effort was made by Inspector Bain's, who has the case in hand, to ascertain the hiding-place of the fugitives, and he had good reason to believe that they had not gone far but were lurking in some retreat which had been already prepared. It was certain from the first, however, that they would eventually be detected as the cook from the evidence of one or two tradespeople who have caught a glimpse of him through the window was a man of most remarkable appearance, being a huge and hideous mulatto with yellowish features of a pronounced negroid type. This man has been seen since the crime, for he was detected and pursued by Constable Walters on the same evening when he had had the audacity to revisit Wisteria Lodge. Inspector Bain's, considering that such a visit must have some purpose in view and was likely, therefore, to be repeated, abandoned the house but left an ambuscade in the shrubbery. The man walked into the trap and was captured last night after a struggle in which Constable Downing was badly bitten by the savage. We understand that when the prisoner is brought before the magistrates a remand will be applied for by the police and that great developments are hoped from his capture. "'Really, we must see Bain's at once,' cried Holmes, picking up his hat. "'We will just catch him before he starts.' We hurried down the village street and found as we had expected that the Inspector was just leaving his lodgings. "'You've seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?' he asked, holding one out to us. "'Yes, Bain's, I've seen it. Pray don't think it a liberty if I give you a word of friendly warning.' "'Of warning, Mr. Holmes?' "'I have looked into this case with some care. And I am not convinced that you are on the right lines. I don't want you to commit yourself too far unless you are sure.' "'You're very kind, Mr. Holmes.' "'I assure you I speak for your good.' "'It seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an instant over one of Mr. Bain's's tiny eyes.' "'We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. Holmes. That's what I'm doing.' "'Oh, very good,' said Holmes. "'Don't blame me.' "'No, sir. I believe you mean well by me, but we all have our own systems, Mr. Holmes. You have yours, and maybe I have mine.' "'Let us say no more about it.' "'You're welcome always to my news. This fellow is a perfect savage, as strong as a cart horse and as fierce as a devil. He chewed Downing's thumb nearly off before they could master him. He hardly speaks a word of English, and we can get nothing out of him but grunts. And you think you have evidence that he murdered his late master?' "'I didn't say so, Mr. Holmes. I didn't say so. We all have our little ways. You try yours, and I will try mine. That's the agreement.' Holmes shrugged his shoulders as we walked away together. "'I can't make the man out. He seems to be riding for a fall. Well, as he says, we must each try our own way and see what comes of it. But there's something in Inspector Baines which I can't quite understand.' "'Just sit down in that chair, Watson,' said Sherlock Holmes, when we had returned to our apartment at the bull. "'I want to put you in touch with the situation, as I may need your help tonight. Let me show you the evolution of this case, so far as I have been able to follow it. Simple as it has been in its leading features, it has nonetheless presented surprising difficulties in the way of an arrest. There are gaps in that direction which we may have to still fill. We still go back to the note which was handed into Garcia upon the evening of his death. We may put aside this idea of Baines's that Garcia's servants were concerned in the matter. The proof of this lies in the fact that it was he who had arranged for the presence of Scott Eccles, which could only have been done for the purpose of an alibi. It was Garcia, then, who had an enterprise, and apparently a criminal enterprise, in hand that night in the course of which he met his death. I say criminal because only a man with a criminal enterprise desires to establish an alibi, who then is most likely to have taken his life. Surely the person against whom the criminal enterprise was directed, so far it seems to me that we are on safe ground. We can now see a reason for the disappearance of Garcia's household. They were all confederates in the same unknown crime. If it came off when Garcia returned any possible suspicion would be warded off by the Englishman's evidence and all would be well. But the attempt was a dangerous one, and if Garcia did not return by a certain hour it was probable that his own life had been sacrificed. It had been arranged, therefore, that in such a case his two subordinates were to make for some prearranged spot where they could escape investigation and be in a position afterwards to renew their attempt. That would fully explain the facts, would it not? The whole inexplicable tangle seemed to straighten out before me. I wondered, as I always did, how it had not been obvious to me before. But why should one servant return? We can imagine that in the confusion of flight something precious, something which he could not bear to part with, had been left behind. That would explain his persistence, would it not? Well, what is the next step? The next step is the note received by Garcia at the dinner. It indicates a confederate at the other end. Now, where was the other end? I have already shown you that it could only lie in some large house, and that the number of large houses is limited. My first days in this village were devoted to a series of walks in which in the intervals of my botanical researches I made a reconnaissance of all the large houses and an examination of the family history of the occupants. One house and only one riveted my attention. It is the famous old Jacobean Grange of High Gable, one mile on the farther side of Ockshot and less than half a mile from the scene of the tragedy. The other mansions belong to prosaic and respectable people who live far aloof from romance. But Mr. Henderson of High Gable was by all accounts a curious man to whom curious adventures might befall. I concentrated my attention, therefore, upon him and his household. A singular set of people, Watson. The man himself, the most singular of them all. I managed to see him on a plausible pretext, but I seemed to read in his dark, deepest brooding eyes that he was perfectly aware of my true business. He is a man of fifty, strong, active, with iron grey hair, great bunched black eyebrows, the step of a deer and the air of an emperor, a fierce, masterful man with a red-hot spirit behind his parchment face. He is either a foreigner or has lived long in the tropics, for he is yellow and sapless, but tough as whip-cord. His friend and secretary, Mr. Lucas, is undoubtedly a foreigner, chocolate brown, wily, suave and cat-like with a poisonous gentleness of speech. You see, Watson, we have come already upon two sets of foreigners, one at Wisteria Lodge and one at High Gable, so our gaps are beginning to close. These two men, close and confidential friends, are the centre of the household, but there is one other person who for our immediate purpose may be even more important. Henderson has two children, girls of eleven and thirteen. Their governess is a Miss Burnett, an Englishwoman of forty or thereabouts, there is also one confidential manservant. This little group forms the real family, for they travel about together, and Henderson is a great traveller always on the move. It is only within the last weeks that he has returned after a year's absence to High Gable. I may add that he is enormously rich, and whatever his whims may be he can very easily satisfy them.  So much I learned partly from Village Gossip, and partly from my own observation. There are no better instruments than discharged servants with a grievance, and I was lucky enough to find one. I call it luck, but it would not have come my way had I not been looking out for it. As Bain's remarks, we all have our systems. It was my system which enabled me to find John Warner, late gardener of High Gable, sacked in a moment of temper by his imperious employer. He in turn had friends among the indoor servants, who unite in their fear and dislike of their master. So, I had my key to the secrets of the establishment. Curious people, Watson! I don't pretend to understand it all yet, but very curious people anyway. It's a double-winged house, and the servants live on one side, the family on the other. There's no link between the two save for Henderson's own servant, who serves the family's meals. Everything is carried to a certain door, which forms the one connection. Governors and children hardly go out at all except into the garden. Never, by any chance, walks alone. His dark secretary is like his shadow. The gossip among the servants is that their master is terribly afraid of something. "'Sold is sold to the devil in exchange for money,' says Warner, and expects his creditor to come up and claim his own. Where they came from, or who they are, nobody has an idea. They are very violent. Twice Henderson has lashed at folk with his dog-whip, and only his long purse and heavy compensation have kept him out of the courts. Well, now, Watson, let us judge the situation by this new information. We may take it that the letter came out of this strange household, and was an invitation to Garcia to carry out some attempt which had already been planned. Who wrote the note? It was someone within the citadel, and it was a woman. Who then but Miss Burnett, the governess? All our reasoning seems to point that way. At any rate, we may take it as a hypothesis and see what consequences it would entail. I may add that Miss Burnett's age and character make it certain that my first idea that there might be a love interest in our story is out of the question. If she wrote the note, she was presumably the friend and confederate of Garcia. What then might she be expected to do if she heard of his death? If he met it in some nefarious enterprise, her lips might be sealed. Still, in her heart she must retain bitterness and hatred against those who had killed him, and would presumably help so far she could have revenge upon them. Did we see her, then, and try to use her? That was my first thought. But now we come to a sinister fact. Miss Burnett has not been seen by any human eye since the night of the murder. From that evening she has utterly vanished. Is she alive? Has she perhaps met her end on the same night as the friend whom she had summoned? Or is she merely a prisoner? There is the point which we still have to decide. You will appreciate the difficulty of the situation, Watson. There is nothing upon which we can apply for a warrant. Our whole scheme might seem fantastic if laid before a magistrate. The woman's disappearance counts for nothing, since in that extraordinary household any member of it might be invisible for a week. And yet she may at the present moment be in danger of her life. All I can do is to watch the house and leave my agent Warner on guard at the gates. We can't let such a situation continue. If the law can do nothing, we must take the risk ourselves. What do you suggest? I know which is her room. It is accessible from the top of an out-house. My suggestion is that you and I go to-night and see if we can strike at the very heart of the mystery. It was not, I must confess, a very alluring prospect. The old house with its atmosphere of murder, the singular and formidable inhabitants, the unknown dangers of the approach, and the fact that we were putting ourselves legally in a false position, all combined to damp my ardour. But there was something in the ice-cold reasoning of Holmes which made it impossible to shrink from any adventure which he might recommend. One knew that thus and only thus could a solution be found.  But it was not destined that our investigation should have so adventurous an ending. It was about five o'clock, and the shadows of the March evening were beginning to fall when an excited rustic rushed into our room. They've gone, Mr. Holmes. They went by the last train. The lady broke away, and I've got her in a cab downstairs. Excellent Warner cried Holmes springing to his feet. Watson, the gaps are closing rapidly. In the cab was a woman, half-collapsed from nervous exhaustion. She bore upon her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some recent tragedy. Her head hung listlessly upon her breast. But as she raised it and turned her dull eyes upon us, I saw that her pupils were dark dots in the centre of the broad grey iris. She was drugged with opium. I watched at the gate, same as you advise, Mr. Holmes, said our emissary, the discharged gardener. When the carriage came out, I followed it to the station. She was like one walking in her sleep. But when they tried to get her into the train, she came to life and struggled. They pushed her into the carriage. She fought her way out again. I took her part, got her in a cab, and here we are. I shan't forget the face at the carriage window as I led her away. I'd have a short life if I'd his way, the black-eyed, scowling yellow devil. We carried her upstairs, later on the sofa, and a couple of cups of the strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the mists of the drug. Banes had been summoned by Holmes, and the situation rapidly explained to him. "'Why, sir, you've got me the very evidence I want,' said the Inspector warmly, shaking my friend by the hand. "'I was on the same centre as you from the first.' "'What? You were after Henderson?' "'Why, Mr. Holmes, when you were crawling in the shrubbery at High Gable, I was up one of the trees in the plantation and saw you down below. It was just who would get his evidence first.' "'Then why did you arrest the mulatto?' Banes chuckled. "'I was sure, Henderson, as he caused himself, felt that he was suspected, that he would lie low and make no move so long as he thought he was in any danger. I arrested the wrong man to make him believe that our eyes were off him. I knew he'd be likely to clear off, then, and give us a chance of getting at Miss Burnett.'" Holmes laid his hand upon the Inspector's shoulder. "'You will rise high in your profession. You have instinct and intuition,' said he. Banes flushed with pleasure. "'I've had plain clothes, man, waiting at the station all the week. Wherever the High Gable folk go, we will keep them in sight. But he must have been hard put to it when Miss Burnett broke away. However, your man picked her up, and it was all ends well. We can't arrest without her evidence, and that is clear. So the sooner we get a statement, the better.'" "'Every minute she gets stronger,' said Holmes, glancing at the governess. "'But tell me, Banes. Who is this man, Henderson?' "'Henderson,' the Inspector answered. "'Is Don Marillo once called the Tiger of San Pedro?' "'The Tiger of San Pedro. The whole history of the man came back to me in a flash. He had made his name as the most lewd and bloodthirsty tyrant that had ever governed any country with a pretence to civilisation. Strong, fearless, and energetic. He had sufficient virtue to enable him to impose his odious vices upon a cowering people for ten or twelve years. His name was a terror through all Central America. At the end of that time there was a universal rising against him. But he was as cunning as he was cruel, and at the first whisper of coming trouble he had secretly conveyed his treasures aboard a ship which was manned by devoted adherents. There was an empty palace which was stormed by the insurgents next day. The dictator, his two children, his secretary, and his wealth, had all escaped them. From that moment he had vanished from the world, and his identity had been a frequent subject for comment in the European press. "'Yes, sir. Don Marillo, the Tiger of San Pedro,' said Banes. If you look it up you will find that the San Pedro colours are green and white, same as in the note, Mr. Holmes. Henderson he called himself, but I traced him back, Paris and Rome and Madrid to Barcelona, where his ship came in in eighty-six. They had been looking for him all the time for their revenge, but it is only now that they had begun to find him out. They discovered him a year ago, said Miss Burnett, who had sat up and was now intently following the conversation. Once already his life has been attempted, but some evil spirit shielded him. Now again it is the noble chivalrous Garcia who has fallen while the monster goes safe. But another will come, and yet another, until some day justice will be done. That is as certain as the rise of tomorrow's sun. Her thin hands clenched, and her worn face splanched with the passion of her hatred. "'But how come you into this matter, Miss Burnett?' asked Holmes. "'How can an English lady join in such a murderous affair?' "'I join in it because there is no other way in the world by which justice can be gained. What does the law of England care for the rivers of blood shed years ago in San Pedro, or for the ship-load of treasure which this man has stolen? To you they are like crimes committed in some other planet. But we know. We have learned the truth in sorrow and in suffering.  "'He was, as you say, I have heard, that he was atrocious. But how are you affected?' "'I will tell you it all. This villain's policy was to murder, on one pretext or another. Every man who showed such promise that he might in time come to be a dangerous rival. My husband—yes, my real name is Signora Victoria Durando—was the San Pedro minister in London. He met me and married me there. A nobler man never lived upon earth. Unhappily, Murillo heard of his excellence, recalled him on some pretext, and had him shot. With a premonition of his fate he had refused to take me with him. His estates were confiscated, and I was left with a pittance and a broken heart. Then came the downfall of the tyrant. He escaped, as you have just described, but the many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest and dearest had suffered torture and death at his hands, would not let the matter rest. They banded themselves into a society which should never be dissolved until the work was done. It was my part, after he had discovered in the transformed Henderson the fallen despot, to attach myself to his household and keep the others in touch with his movements. This I was able to do by securing the position of governess in his family. He little knew that the woman who faced him at every meal was the woman whose husband he had hurried at an hour's notice into eternity. I smiled on him, did my duty to his children, and bided my time. An attempt was made in Paris and failed. We zigzagged swiftly, here and there over Europe, to throw off the pursuers and finally return to this house, which he had taken upon his first arrival in England. But here also, the ministers of justice were waiting. Knowing that he would return there, Garcia, who is the son of the former highest dignitary in San Pedro, was waiting with two trusty companions of Humble Station. All three fired with the same reasons for revenge. He could do little during the day, for Murillo took every precaution and never went out, save with his satellite, Lucas or Lopez, as he was known in the days of his greatness. At night, however, he slept alone, and the Avenger might find him. On a certain evening which had been pre-arranged, I sent my friend final instructions, for the man was forever on the alert and continually changed his room. I was to see that the doors were open, and the signal of a green or white light in a window which faced the drive was to give notice if all was safe or if the attempt had better be postponed. But everything went wrong with us. In some way I had excited the suspicion of Lopez the secretary. He crept up behind me, and sprang upon me just as I had finished the note. He and his master dragged me to my room and held judgment upon me as a convicted traitorous. Then and there they would have plunged their knives into me, could they have seen how to escape the consequences of the deed. Finally, after much debate, they concluded that my murder was too dangerous, but they determined to get rid of forever of Garcia. They had gagged me, and Murillo twisted my arm round until I gave him the address. I swear that he might have twisted it off had I understood what it would mean to Garcia. Lopez addressed the note which I had written, sealed it with his sleeve link, and sent it by the hand of the servant, Jose. How they murdered him I do not know, save that it was Murillo's hand who struck him down, for Lopez had remained to guard me. I believe he must have waited among the gorse bushes through which the path winds and struck him down as he passed. At first they were of a mind to let him enter the house and to kill him as a detected burglar, but they argued that if they were mixed up in an inquiry with their own identity would at once be publicly disclosed, and they would be open to further attacks. With the death of Garcia the pursuit might cease, since such a death might frighten others from the task. All would now have been well for them had it not been for my knowledge of what they had done. I have no doubt that there were times when my life hung in the balance. I was confined to my room, terrorized by the most horrible threats, cruelly ill-used to break my spirit. I could see this stab on my shoulder, and the bruises from the end to end of my arms, and a gag was thrust into my mouth on the one occasion when I tried to call from the window. For five days this cruel imprisonment continued, with hardly enough food to hold body and soul together. This afternoon a good lunch was brought me, but the moment after I took it I knew that I had been drugged. In a sort of dream I remember being half led, half carried to the carriage, in the same state I was conveyed to the train. Only then, when the wheels were almost moving, did I suddenly realize that my liberty lay in my own hands. I sprang out, they tried to drag me back, and had it not been for the help of this good man who led me to the cab, I should never have broken away. Now, thank God, I am beyond their power for ever. We had all listened intently to this remarkable statement. It was Holmes who broke the silence. Our difficulties are not over, he remarked, shaking his head. Our police work ends, but our legal work begins. Exactly, to die, a plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of self-defense. There may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it is only on this one that they can be tried. Come, come," said Bane's cheerily, I think better of the law than that. Self-defence is one thing. To entice a man in cold blood with the object of murdering him is another. Whatever danger you may fear from him. No, no, we shall all be justified when we see the tenants of High Gable at the next Guilford Assizes. It is a master of history, however, that a little time was still to elapse before the tiger of San Pedro should meet with his deserts. Wily and bold, he and his companion threw their pursuer off their track by entering a lodging-house in Edmonton Street and leaving by the back gate into Curson Square. From that day there was seen no more in England. Some six months afterwards, the Marquis of Montlava and Signeur Roulis, his secretary, were both murdered in their rooms at the Hotel Escuriel at Madrid. The crime was ascribed to nihilism, and the murderers were never arrested. Inspector Bane's visitors as at Baker Street were the printed description of the dark face of the secretary, and of the masterful features, the magnetic black eyes, and the tufted brows of his master. We could not doubt that justice, if belated, had come at last. A chaotic case, my dear Watson, said Holmes over an evening pipe, it will not be possible for you to present in that compact form which is dear to your heart. It covers two continents, concerns two groups of mysterious persons, and is further complicated by the highly respectable presence of our friend Scott Eccles, whose inclusion shows me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming mind and a well-developed instinct of self-preservation. It is remarkable only for the fact that amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our worthy collaborator, the Inspector, have kept our close hold on the essentials, and so been guided along the crooked and winding path. Is there any point which is not quite clear to you? The object of the mulatto-cook's return. I think that the strange creature in the kitchen may account for it. The man was a primitive savage from the backwards of San Pedro, and this was his fetish. When his companion, and he had fled to some prearranged retreat, already occupied, no doubt by a confederate, the companion had persuaded him to leave so compromising an article of furniture. But the mulatto's heart was with it, and he was driven back to it next day, when on reconnoitering through the window he found policeman Walters in possession. He waited three days longer, and then his piety or his superstition drove him to try once more. Inspector Baines, who with his usual astuteness had minimized the incident before me, had really recognized its importance and had left a trap into which the creature walked. Any other point, Watson? The torn bird, the pale of blood, the charred bones, all the mystery of that weird kitchen. Holmes smiled as he turned up an entry in his notebook. I spent a morning in the British Museum reading up on that and other points. There is a quotation from Ekerman's voodooism and the Negroid religions. The true voodoo whisper attempts nothing of importance without certain sacrifices which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods. In extreme cases, these rites take the form of human sacrifices followed by cannibalism.  So you see our savage friend was very orthodox in his ritual. It is Grotesque, Watson, Holmes added, as he slowly fastened his notebook. But as I have had occasion to remark, there is but one step from the Grotesque to the Horrible. End of Chapter 2 and Adventure 1 of His Last Bow In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental qualities of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured as far as possible to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism while offering a fair field for his talents. It is, however, unfavorable for me to say, that I have never had the chance to do so. I have never had the chance to do so. I have never had the chance to do so. It is, however, unfortunately impossible entirely to separate the sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to his statement, and so give a false impression of the problem, or he must use matter which chance and not choice has provided him with. With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events. It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven, and the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the house across the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to believe that these were the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs of winter. Our blinds were half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and rereading a letter which he had received by the morning post. For myself, my term of service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold, and a thermometer at ninety was no hardship. But the morning paper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen, everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the glades of the new forest or the shingles of South Sea. A depleted bank account had caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind from the evildoer of the town to track down his brother of the country. Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation, I had tossed aside the barren paper and leaning back in my chair, I fell into a brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts. "'You are right, Watson,' said he. It does seem a most preposterous way of settling a dispute. "'Most preposterous,' I exclaimed, and then suddenly realising how he had echoed my inmost thoughts, I sat up in my chair and stared at him in blank amazement. "'What's this, Holmes?' I cried. "'This is beyond anything which I could have imagined.' He laughed heartily at my perplexity. "'You remember,' said he, "'some little time ago when I read you the passage in one of Poe's sketches, in which a close reasoner follows the unspoken thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to treat the matter as a mere tour de force of the author. On my remarking that I was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing, you expressed incredulity. "'Oh, no!' "'Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a train of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been in rapport with you. But I was still far from satisfied. "'In the example which you read to me,' said I, "'the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of the man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap of stones, looked up at the stars, and so on, but I've been seated quietly in my chair. And what clues can I have given you?' "'You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as the means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful servants. "'Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my features?' "'Your features, and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot yourself recall how your reverie commenced.  Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in your face that a train of thought had been started. But it did not lead very far. Your eyes flashed across to the unframed portrait of Henry Ward Beecher, which stands upon the top of your books. Then you glanced up at the wall.  You were thinking that if the portrait was framed it would just cover that bare space and correspond with Gordon's picture there. "'You followed me wonderfully,' I exclaimed. "'So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts went back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying the character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but you continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. You were recalling the incidents of Beecher's career. I was well aware that you could not do this without thinking of the mission which he undertook on behalf of the North at the time of the Civil War, for I remember your expressing your passionate indignation at the way in which he was received by the most more turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly about it that I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking of that also. When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the picture, I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War. And when I observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled and your hands clenched, I was positive that you were indeed thinking of the gallantry which was shown by both sides in that desperate struggle.     At this point I agreed with you that it was preposterous and was glad to find that all my deductions had been correct. Absolutely, said I, and now that you have explained it I confess that I am as amazed as before. It was very superficial, my dear Watson. I assure you I should not have intruded it upon your attention, had you not shown some incredulity the other day. But I have in my hands here a little problem which may prove to be more difficult of solution than my small essay in thought reading. Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to miscushing of Cross Street Croydon? No, I saw nothing. Ah, then you must have overlooked it. Just toss it over to me. Here it is, under the financial column. Perhaps you would be good enough to read it aloud. I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me, and read the paragraph indicated. It was headed, A Gruesome Packet. Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street Croydon, has been made the victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical joke unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to the incident. At two o'clock yesterday afternoon a small packet wrapped in brown paper was handed in by the postman.  On emptying this Miss Cushing was horrified to find two human ears apparently quite freshly severed. The box had been sent by parcel post from Belfast upon the morning before. There's no indication as to the sender, and the matter is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of fifty, has led a most retired life and has so few acquaintances or correspondence that it is a rare event for her to receive anything through the post. Some years ago, however, when she retired at Pennge, she let apartments in her house to three young medical students whom she was obliged to get rid of on account of their noisy and irregular habits. The police are of opinion that this outrage may have been perpetrated upon Miss Cushing by these youths, who owed her a grudge and who hoped to frighten her by sending her these relics of the dissecting rooms. Some probability is lent to the theory by the fact that one of these students came from the north of Ireland and to the best of Miss Cushing's belief from Belfast. In the meantime, the matter is being actively investigated. Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective officers, being in charge of the case. So much for the daily chronicle, said Holmes as I finished reading, Now for our friend Lestrade. I had a note from him this morning in which he says, I think that this case is very much in your line. We have every hope of clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting anything to work upon. We have, of course, wired to the Belfast post office, but a large number of parcels were handed in upon that day, and they have no means of identifying this particular one, or of remembering the sender. The box is a half-pound box of honeydew tobacco, and does not help us in any way. The medical student theory still appears to me to be the most feasible, but if you should have a few hours to spare, I should be very happy to see you out there. I should be either at the house or in the police station all day. What say you, Watson? Can you rise superior to the heat and run down to Croydon with me on the off chance of a case for your annals? I was longing for something to do. You shall have it, then. Ring for our boots and tell them to order a cab. I'll be back in a moment when I have changed my dressing gown and filled my cigar case. A shower of rain fell while we were in the train, and the heat was far less oppressive in Croydon than in town. Homes had sent on a wire so that the strad, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever, was waiting for us at the station. A walk of five minutes took us to Cross Street, where Miss Cushing resided. It was a very long street of two-storey brick houses, neat and prim with whiteened stone steps and little groups of aproned women gossiping at the doors. Halfway down, the strad stopped and tapped at a door which was opened by a small servant-girl. Miss Cushing was sitting at the front room, into which we were ushered. She was a placid-faced woman, with large, gentle eyes and grizzled hair curving down over her temples on each side. A worked antimicasa lay upon her lap, and a basket of coloured silks stood upon a stool beside her. They are in the out-house, those dreadful things, said she as the strad entered. I wished that you would take them away altogether. So I shall, Miss Cushing, I only kept me until my friend Mr. Holmes should have seen them in your presence. Why in my presence, sir? In case he wished to ask any questions. What is the use of asking me questions, when I tell you I know nothing whatever about it? Quite so, madam, said Holmes in his soothing way. I have no doubt that you have been annoyed more than enough already over this business. Indeed I have, sir. I am a quiet woman, and live a retired life. It is something new for me to see my name in the papers, and to find the police in my house. I won't have those things in here, Mr. Lestrade. If you wish to see them, you must go to the out-house. It was a small shed in the narrow garden which ran behind the house. Lestrade went in and brought out a yellow cardboard box, with a piece of brown paper and some string. There was a bench at the end of the path, and we all sat down while Holmes examined one by one the articles which Lestrade had handed to him. This string is exceedingly interesting, he remarked, holding it up to the light and sniffing at it. What do you make of this string, Lestrade? It has been tarred. Precisely. It is a piece of tarred twine. You have also, no doubt, remarked that Miss Cushing has cut the cord with scissors, as can be seen by the double fray on each side. This is of importance. Ah, cannot see the importance, said Lestrade. The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and that this knot is of a peculiar character. It is very neatly tied. I had already made a note to that effect, said Lestrade complacently. So much for the string, then, said Holmes smiling. Now for the box wrapper. Brown paper with a distinct smell of coffee. What, did you not observe it? I think there can be no doubt of it. Address printed in rather straggling characters. Miss S. Cushing, Cross Street Croydon. Done with a broad pointed pen, probably a J, and with very inferior ink. The word Croydon has been originally spelled with an I, which has been changed to Y. The parcel was directed, then, by a man. The printing is distinctly masculine of limited education and unacquainted with the town of Croydon. So far, so good. The box is yellow, half-pound honeydew box with nothing distinctive, save two thumb marks at the left bottom corner. It is filled with rough salt of the quality used for preserving hides and other of the coarser commercial purposes, and embedded in it are these very singular enclosures. He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying aboard across his knee, he examined them minutely, while Estrada and I, bending forward on each side of him, glanced alternately at these dreadful relics, and at the thoughtful, eager face of our companion. Finally, he returned them to the box once more, and sat for a while in deep meditation. You have observed, of course, said he at last, that the ears are not a pair. Yes, I've noticed that, but if this were the practical joke of some students from the dissecting rooms, it would be as easy for them to send two odd ears as a pair. Precisely. But this is not a practical joke. You're sure of it? The presumption is strongly against it. Bodies in the dissecting rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears bear no signs of this, and they're fresh, too. They've been cut off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a student had done it. Again, carbolic or rectified spirits would be the preservatives, which would suggest themselves to the medical mind, certainly not rough salt. I repeat that there is no practical joke here, but that we are investigating a serious crime. A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to my companion's words, and saw the stern gravity which had hardened his features. This brutal preliminary seemed to shadow forth some strange and inexplicable horror in the background.  There are objections to the joke theory, no doubt, said he, but there are much stronger reasons against the other. We know that this woman has led a most quiet and respectable life at Pennge, and here for the last twenty years she's hardly been away from her own for a day during that time. Why on earth, then, should any criminal send her the proofs of his guilt, especially as, unless she is a most consummate actress, she understands quite as little of the matter as we do. That is the problem which we have to solve, Holmes answered, and for my part I shall set about it by presuming that my reasoning is correct, and that a double murder has been committed. One of these ears is a woman's, small, finely formed, and pierced for an earring. The other is a man's, sunburned, discoloured, and also pierced for an earring. These two people are presumably dead, or we should have heard their story before now. Today is Friday, the packet was posted on Thursday morning. The tragedy then occurred on Wednesday or Tuesday or earlier. If the two people were murdered, who but their murderer would have sent this sign of his work to Miss Cushing? We may take it that the sender of the packet is the man whom we want, but he must have some strong reason for sending Miss Cushing this packet. What reason, then? It must have been to tell her that the deed was done, or to pain her, perhaps. But in that case she knows who it is. Does she know? I doubt it. If she knew, why, she should call the police in. She might have buried the ears, and no one would have been the wiser. That is what she would have done if she had wished to shield the criminal. But if she does not wish to shield him, she would give his name. There is a tangle here which needs straightening out. He had been talking in a high quick voice, staring blankly up over the garden fence, but now he sprang briskly to his feet and walked towards the house. I have a few questions to ask Miss Cushing, said he. In that case I may leave you here, said Lestrade, for I have another small business on hand. I think I have nothing further to learn from Miss Cushing. You'll find me at the police station. We shall look in on our way to the train, answered Holmes. A moment later he and I were back in the front room where the impassive lady was still quietly working away at her anti-McCassar. She put it down on her lap as we entered, and looked at us with her frank, searching blue eyes. I am convinced, sir, she said, that this matter is a mistake, and that the parcel was never meant for me at all. I have said this several times to the gentleman from Scotland Yard, but he simply laughs at me. I have not an enemy in the world as far as I know, so why should anyone play me such a trick? I am coming to be of the same opinion, Miss Cushing, said Holmes, taking a seat beside her. I think that it is more than probable. He paused, and I was surprised on glancing round, so see that he was staring with singular intentness at the lady's profile. Surprise and satisfaction were both for an instant to be read upon his eager face, though when she glanced round to find out the cause of his silence, he had become as demure as ever. I stared hard myself at her flat, grizzled hair, her trim cap, her little gilt earrings, her placid features, but I could see nothing which would account for my companion's evident excitement. There were one or two questions. Oh, I am weary of questions! cried Miss Cushing impatiently. You have two sisters, I believe. How could you know that? I observed the very instant that I entered the room that you have a portrait group of three ladies upon the mantelpiece, one of whom is undoubtedly yourself, while the others are so exceedingly like you that there could be no doubt of the relationship. Yes, you are quite right. Those are my sisters, Sarah and Mary. And here at my elbow is another portrait, taken at Liverpool of your younger sister in the company of a man who appears to be a steward by his uniform. I observed that she was unmarried at the time. You are very quick at observing. That is my trade. Well, you are quite right, but she was married to Mr. Browner a few days afterwards. He was on the South American line when that was taken, but he was so fond of her that he couldn't abide to leave her for so long, and he got into the Liverpool and London boats. Ah, the conqueror, perhaps. No, the May Day, when last I heard. Jim came down here to see me once. That was before he broke the pledge, but afterwards he would always take drink when he was ashore, and a little drink would send him stark, staring mad. Ah, it was a bad day that ever he took a glass in his hand again. First he dropped me, then he quarreled with Sarah, and now that Mary has stopped writing, we don't know how things are going with them. It was evident that Miss Cushing had come upon a subject in which she felt very deeply. Like most people who lead a lonely life, she was shy at first, but ended by becoming extremely communicative. She told us many details about her brother-in-law, the steward, and then wandering off on the subject of her former lodgers, the medical students, she gave us a long account of their delinquencies, with their names and those of their hospitals. Holmes listened attentively to everything, throwing in a question from time to time. About your second sister Sarah, said he, I wonder, since you are both maiden ladies, that you do not keep house together. Ah, you don't know Sarah's temper, or you'd wonder no more. I tried it when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two months ago when we had to part. I don't want to say a word against my own sister, but she was always meddlesome and hard to please with Sarah. You say that she quarrelled with your Liverpool relations. Yes, and they were the best friends at one time. Why, she went up there to live in order to be near them, and now she has no word hard enough for Jim Browner. The last six months that she was here she would speak of nothing but his drinking and his ways. He had caught her meddling, I suspect, and given her a bit of his mind, and that was the start of it. Thank you, Miss Cushing, said Holmes, rising and bowing. Your sister Sarah lives, I think you said, at New Street, Wellington. Goodbye, and I am very sorry that you should have been troubled over a case with which, as you say, you have nothing whatever to do. There was a cab passing as we came out, and Holmes hailed it. How far to Wellington, he asked. Only about a mile, sir. Very good. Jump in, Watson. We must strike while the iron is hot. Simple as the case is, there have been one or two very instructive details in connection with it. Just pull up at a telegraph office as you pass, cabbie. Holmes sent off a short wire, and for the rest of the drive lay back in the cab, with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the sun from his face. Our drive pulled up at a house which was not unlike the one which we had just quitted. My companion ordered him to wait, and had his hand upon the knocker when the door opened, and a grave young gentleman in black with a very shiny hat appeared on the step. Is Miss Cushing at home? asked Holmes. Miss Sarah Cushing is extremely ill, said he. She has been suffering since yesterday from brain symptoms of great severity. As her medical adviser, I cannot possibly take the responsibility of allowing anyone to see her. I should recommend you to call again in ten days. He drew on his gloves, closed the door, and marched off down the street. Well, if we can't, we can't, said Holmes cheerfully. Perhaps she could not, or would not have told you much. I did not wish her to tell me anything. I only wanted to look at her. However, I think that I have got all that I want. Drive us to some decent hotel cabbie, where we may have some lunch, and afterwards we shall drop down upon Friend the Strahd at the police station. We had a pleasant little meal together, during which Holmes would talk about nothing but violins, narrating with great exultation how he had purchased his own Stradivarius, which was worth at least five hundred guineas at a Jew Brokers in Tottenham Court Road for fifty-five shillings. This led him to Paganini, and we sat for an hour over a bottle of claret, while he told me anecdote after anecdote of that extraordinary man. The afternoon was far advanced, and the hot glare had softened into mellow glow, before we found ourselves at the police station. The Strahd was waiting for us at the door. A telegram for you, Mr. Holmes, said he. Ha! it is the answer. He tore it open, glanced his eyes over it, and crumpled it into his pocket. That's all right, said he. Have you found out anything? I have found out everything. What! the Strahd stared at him in amazement. You're joking! I was never more serious in my life. A shocking crime has been committed, and I think I have now laid bare every detail of it. And a criminal! Holmes scribbled a few words upon the back of one of his visiting cards, and threw it over to the Strahd. That is the name, he said. You cannot effect an arrest until tomorrow night at the earliest. I should prefer that you do not mention my name at all in connection with the case, as I choose to be only associated with those crimes which present some difficulty in their solution. Come on, Watson! We strode off together to the station, leaving Strahd still staring with a delighted face at the card which Holmes had thrown him. The case, said Sherlock Holmes, as we chatted over our cigars that night in our rooms at Baker Street, is one where, as in the investigations which you have chronicled under the name of a study in scarlet and of the sign of four, we have been compelled to reason backward from effects to causes. I have written to the Strahd asking him to supply us with the details which are now wanting, and which he will only get after he has secured his man. That he may be safely trusted to do, for although he is absolutely devoid of reason, he is as tenacious as a bulldog when he once understands what he has to do, and indeed it is just this tenacity which has brought him to the top at Scotland Yard. The case is not complete, then, I asked. It is fairly complete in essentials. We know who the author of the revolting business is, although one of the victims still escapes us. Of course, you have formed your own conclusions. I presume that this Jim Browner, the steward of a Liverpool boat, is the man whom you suspect. Oh, it is more than a suspicion. And yet I cannot see anything, say, very vague indications. On the contrary, to my mind nothing could be more clear. Let me run over the principal steps. We approach the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind, which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations. What did we see first? A very placid and respectable lady who seemed quite innocent of any secret, and a portrait which showed me that she had two younger sisters. It instantly flashed across my mind that the box might have been meant for one of these. I set the idea aside as one which could be disproved or confirmed at our leisure. Then we went to the garden, as you remember, and we saw the very singular contents of the little yellow box. The string was of the quality which is used by sail-makers aboard ship, and at once a whiff of the sea was perceptible in our investigation. When I observed that the knot was one which is popular with sailors, that the parcel had been posted at a port and that the male ear was pierced for an earring, which is so much more common among sailors than landsmen, I was quite certain that all the actors in the tragedy were to be found among our seafaring classes. When I came to examine the address of the packet, I observed that it was to Miss S. Cushing. Now the oldest sister would of course be Miss Cushing, and although her initial was S, it might belong to one of the others as well. In that case we should have to commence our investigation from a fresh basis altogether. I therefore went into the house with the intention of clearing up this point. I was about to assure Miss Cushing that I was convinced that a mistake had been made when you may remember that I came suddenly to a stop. The fact was that I had just seen something which filled me with surprise, and at the same time narrowed the field of our inquiry immensely. As a medical man you are aware, Watson, that there is no part of the body which varies so much as the human ear. Each ear is as a rule quite distinctive and differs from all other ones. In last year's anthropological journal you will find two short monographs from my pen upon the subject, and had carefully noted their anatomical peculiarities. Imagine my surprise then when on looking at Miss Cushing I perceived that her ear corresponded exactly with the female ear which I had just inspected. The matter was entirely beyond coincidence. There was the same shortening of the pinner, the same broad curve of the upper lobe, the same convolution of the inner cartilage. In all essentials it was the same ear. In the first place her sister's name was Sarah. And her address had until recently been the same, so that it was quite obvious how the mistake had occurred and for whom the packet was meant. Then we heard of this steward, married to the third sister, and learned that he had at one time been so intimate with Miss Sarah that she had actually gone up to Liverpool to be near the Browners, but a quarrel had afterwards divided them. This quarrel had put a stop to all communication for some months, so that if Browner had occasioned to address a packet to Miss Sarah he would undoubtedly have done so to her old address. And now the matter had begun to straighten itself out wonderfully. We had learned of the existence of this steward, an impulsive man of strong passions, you remember that he threw up what must have been a very superior birth in order to be nearer to his wife, subject too to occasional fits of hard drinking. We had reason to believe that his wife had been murdered, and that a man presumably a seafaring man had been murdered at the same time. Jealousy, of course, at once suggest itself as the motive for the crime. And why should these proofs of the deed be sent to Miss Sarah Cushing? Probably because during her residence in Liverpool she had some hand in bringing about the events which led to the tragedy. You will observe that this line of boats call at Belfast, Dublin and Waterford, so that presuming that Browner had committed the deed and had embarked at once upon his steamer, the May Day, Belfast would be the first place at which he could post his terrible packet. A second solution was at this stage obviously possible, and although I thought it exceedingly unlikely, I was determined to elucidate it before going further. An unsuccessful lover might have killed Mr. Browner and Mrs. Browner, and the male ear might have belonged to the husband. There were many grave objections to this theory, but it was conceivable. I therefore sent off a telegram to my friend Algar of the Liverpool Force and asked him to find out if Mrs. Browner were at home, and if Browner had departed in the May Day. Then we went on to Wellington to visit Miss Sarah. I was curious in the first place to see how far the family ear had been reproduced in her. Then, of course, she might give us very important information, but I was not sanguine that she would. She must have heard of the business the day before, since all Croydon was ringing with it, and she alone could have understood for whom the packet was meant. If she had been willing to help justice, she would probably have communicated with the police already. However, it was clearly our duty to see her, so we went. We found that the news of the arrival of the packet, for her illness dated from that time, had such an effect upon her as to bring on brain fever. It was clearer than ever that she understood its full significance, but equally clear that we should have to wait for some time for any assistance from her. However, we were really independent of her help. Our answers were waiting for us at the police station, where I had directed Algar to send them. Nothing could be more conclusive. Mrs. Browner's house had been closed for more than three days, and the neighbours were of opinion that she had gone south to see her relatives. It had been ascertained at the shipping offices that Browner had left aboard the May Day, and I calculate that she is due in the Thames to-morrow night. When he arrives, he will be met by the obtuse but resolute Lestrade, and I have no doubt that we shall have all our details filled in. Sherlock Holmes was not disappointed in his expectations. Two days later he received a bulky envelope, which contained a short note from the detective and a typewritten document which covered several pages of fool's cap. Lestrade has got him all right," said Holmes, glancing up at me. Perhaps it would interest you to hear what he says. My dear Mr. Holmes, in accordance with the scheme which we had formed in order to test our theories, that we is rather fine, Watson, is it not? I went down to the Albert Dock yesterday at 6 p.m. and boarded the SS May Day, belonging to the Liverpool Dublin and London Steam Packet Company. On inquiry I found that there was a steward on board of the name of James Browner, and that he had acted during the voyage in such an extraordinary manner that the captain had been compelled to relieve him of his duties. On descending to his birth, I found him seated upon a chest with his head sunk upon his hands, rocking himself to and fro. He is a big, powerful chap, clean-shaven and very swathe, something like Aldridge, who helped us in the bogus laundry affair. He jumped up when he heard my business, and I had my whistle to my lips to call a couple of river-police who were round the corner. But he seemed to have no heart in him, and he held out his hands quietly enough for the Darby's. We brought him along to the cells and his box as well, for we thought there might be something incriminating. But bar a big, sharp knife, such as most sailors have, we got nothing for our trouble. However, we find that we shall want no more evidence, for on being brought before the inspector at the station he asked leave to make a statement, which was of course taken down just as he made it by our shorthand man. We had three copies type written, one of which I enclose. The affair proves, as I always thought it would, to be an extremely simple one. But I am obliged to you for assisting me in my investigation, with kind regards, yours very truly G. Lestrade. The investigation really was a very simple one, remarked Holmes, but I don't think it struck him in that light when he first called us in. However, let us see what Jim Browner has to say for himself. This is his statement as made before Inspector Montgomery at the Shadwell police station, and it has the advantage of being verbatim. Have I anything to say? Yes, I have a deal to say. I have to make a clean breast of it all. You can hang me, or you can leave me alone. I don't care a plug which you do.  Sometimes it's his face, but most generally it's hers. I'm never without one or the other before me. He looks frowning and black-like, but she has a kind of surprise upon her face. I, the white lamb, she might well be surprised when she read death on a face that had seldom looked anything but love upon her before. But it was Sarah's fault, and may the curse of a broken man put a blight on her and set the blood rotting in her veins. It's not that I want to clear myself. I know that I went back to drink, like the beast that I was. But she would have forgiven me. She would have stuck as close to me as rope to a block if that woman had never darkened our door. For Sarah Cushing loved me. That's the root of the business. She loved me until all her love turned to poisonous hate when she knew that I thought more of my wife's footmark in the mud than I did of her whole body and soul. There were three sisters altogether. The old one was just a good woman, the second was a devil, and the third was an angel. Sarah was thirty-three, and Mary was twenty-nine when I married. We were just as happy as the day was long when we set up house together, and in all Liverpool there was no better woman than my Mary. And then we asked Sarah up for a week, and the week grew into a month, and one thing led to another until she was just one of ourselves. I was blue-ribbon at that time, and we were putting a little money by, and all was as bright as a new dollar. My God, whoever would have thought that it would have come to this, whoever would have dreamed it. I used to be home for the weekends very often, and sometimes if the ship were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at a time. And in this way I saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah.  But when little Mary was there I had never thought of her, and that I swear as I hope for God's mercy. It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with me, or to coax me out for a walk with her. But I had never thought anything of that. But one evening my eyes were opened. I had come up from the ship and found my wife out, but Sarah at home. Where's Mary? I asked. Oh, she's gone to pay some accounts. I was impatient and paced up and down the room. Can't you be happy for five minutes without Mary, Jim? says she. It's a bad compliment to me that you can't be contented with my society for so short a time. That's all right, my last said I, putting out my hand toward her in a kindly way, but she had it in both hers in an instant, and they burned as if they were in a fever. I looked into her eyes and I read it all there. There was no need for her to speak, nor for me either. I frowned and drew my hand away, and she stood by my side in silence for a bit, and then put up her hand and patted me on the shoulder. Steady, old Jim, said she, and with a kind of mocking laugh, she ran out of the room.  I was a fool to let her go on biding with us, a besotted fool, but I never said a word to Mary, for I knew it would grieve her. Things went on much as before, but after a time I began to find that there was a bit of a change in Mary herself. She had always been so trusting and so innocent, but now she became queer and suspicious, wanting to know where I'd been, and what I'd been doing, and whom my letters were from, and what I had in my pockets, and a thousand such follies. Day by day she grew queerer and more irritable, and we had ceaseless rouse about nothing. I was fairly puzzled by it all. Sarah avoided me now, but she and Mary were just inseparable. I can see now how she was plotting and scheming and poisoning my wife's mind against me. But I was such a blind beetle as I could not understand it at the time. Then I broke my blue ribbon and began to drink again, but I think I should not have done it if Mary had been the same as ever. She had some reason to be disgusted with me now, and the gap between us began to be wider and wider, and then this, Alec Fairbairn, chipped in, and things became a thousand times blacker. It was to see Sarah as he came to my house first, but soon it was to see us, for he was a man with winning ways, and he made friends wherever he went. He was a dashing, swaggering chap, smart and curled, who'd seen half the world and could talk of what he'd seen. He was good company, I won't deny it, and he had wonderful, polite ways with him for a sailor-man, so that I think there must have been a time when he knew more of the poop than the forecastle. For a month he was in and out of my house, and never once did it cross my mind that harm might come of his soft, tricky ways, and then at last something made me suspect, and from that day my peace was gone forever. It was only a little thing, too. I had come into the parlour, unexpected, and as I walked in at the door I saw a light of welcome on my wife's face, but as she saw who it was it faded again and she turned away with a look of disappointment. That was enough for me. There was no one but Alec Fairburn whose step she could have mistaken for mine.  Mary saw the devil's light in my eyes, and she ran forward with her hands on my sleeve. Don't, Jim. Don't, says she. Where's Sarah, I asked. In the kitchen, says she. Sarah, says I, as I went in, this man Fairburn is never to darken my door again. Why not, says she, because I order it. Oh, says she, if my friends are not good enough for this house, then I'm not good enough for it either. You can do what you like, says I, but if Fairburn shows his face here again I'll send you one of his ears for a keepsake. She was frightened by my face, I think, for she never answered a word, and the save evening she left my house. Well, I don't know now whether it was pure devilry on the part of this woman, or whether she thought that she could turn me against my wife by encouraging her to misbehave. Anyway, she took her house just two streets off and let lodgings to sailors. Fairburn used to stay there, and Mary would go round to have tea with her sister and him. How often she went I don't know. But I followed her one day, and as I broke in at the door, Fairburn got away over the back garden wall like the cowardly skunk that he was.  There was no trace of love between us any longer. I could see that she hated me and feared me, and when the thought of it drove me to drink, then she despised me as well. Well, Sarah found that she could not make a living in Liverpool, so she went back, as I understand, to live with her sister in Croydon, and things jogged on much the same as ever at home. And then came this week, and all the misery and ruin. It was in this way. We'd gone on the May Day for a round voyage of seven days, but a hog's head got loose and started one of our plates, so we had to get back into port for twelve hours. I left the ship and came home, thinking what a surprise it would be for my wife, and hoping that maybe she would be glad to see me so soon. The thought was in my head as I turned into my own street, and at that moment a cab passed me, and there she was, sitting by the side of Fairburn, the two chatting and laughing, with never a thought for me as I stood watching them from the footpath.  I've been drinking hard of late, and the two things together fairly turn my brain. There's something throbbing in my head now, like a docker's hammer, but that morning I seem to have all Niagara's whizzing and buzzing in my ears. It was just as if they'd been given into my hands. There was a bit of a haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred yards. I hired a boat for myself, and I pulled after them. I could see the blur of their craft, but they were going nearly as fast as I, and they must have been a long mile from the shore before I caught them up. The haze was like a curtain all round us, and there we were, three in the middle of it. My God, shall I ever forget their faces when they saw who was in the boat that was closing in upon them? She screamed out. He swore like a madman and jabbed at me with an oar, for he must have seen death in my eyes. I got past it and got one in with my stick that crushed his head like an egg. I would have spared her perhaps for all my madness, but she threw her arms around him, crying out to him and calling him Alec. I struck again, and she lay stretched beside him. I was like a wild beast then that had tasted blood. If Sarah had been there by the Lord, she would have joined them. I pulled out my knife, and, well, there, I've said enough. It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how Sarah would feel when she had such signs as these of what her meddling had brought about. Then I tied the bodies into the boat, stove a plank, and stood by until they had sunk. I knew very well that the owner would think that they'd lost their bearings in the haze, and had drifted off out to sea. I cleaned myself up, got back to land, and joined my ship without a soul having a suspicion of what had passed. That night I made up the packet for Sarah Cushing, and next day I sent it from Belfast. There you have the whole truth of it. You can hang me, or do what you like with me, but you cannot punish me as I've been punished already. I cannot shut my eyes, but I see those two faces staring at me. Staring at me as they stared when my boat broke through the haze. I killed them quick, but they're killing me slow, and if I have another night of it I shall be either mad or dead before morning. You won't put me alone into a cell, sir, for pity's sake don't, and may you be treated in your day of agony as you treat me now. What is the meaning of it, Watson? said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the paper. What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever. End of THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARBOARD BOX ADVENTURE 3 IN HIS LAST VOW by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ADVENTURE 3 THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE PART 1 Well, Mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you have any particular cause for uneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of some value, should interfere in the matter. I really have other things to engage me. So spoke Sherlock Holmes and turned back to the great scrapbook in which he was arranging and indexing some of his recent material. But the landlady had the pertinacity and also the cunning of her sex. She held her ground firmly. You arranged an affair for a lodger of mine last year, she said, Mr. Ferdale Hobbs. Ah, yes, a simple matter. But you would never cease talking of it, your kindness, sir, and the way in which you brought light into the darkness. I remembered his words when I was in doubt and darkness myself. I know you could if you only would.  The two forces made him lay down his gum-brush with a sigh of resignation and push back his chair. Well, well, Mrs. Warren, let us hear about it then. You don't object to tobacco, I take it. Thank you, Watson. The matches. You are uneasy, as I understand, because your new lodger remains in his rooms and you cannot see him. Why, bless you, Mrs. Warren, if I were your lodger you often would not see me for weeks on end. No doubt, sir, but this is different. It frightens me, Mr. Holmes. I can't sleep for fright, to hear his quick step moving here and moving there from early morning to late at night, and yet never to catch so much as a glimpse of him. It's more than I can stand. My husband is as nervous over it as I am, but he is out at his work all day, while I get no rest from it. What is he hiding for? What has he done? Except for the girl. I am all alone in the house with him, and it's more than my nerves can stand. Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the woman's shoulder. He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he wished. The scared look faded from her eyes, and her agitated features smoothed into their usual common place. She sat down in the chair which he had indicated. If I take it up I must understand every detail, said he. Take time to consider. The smallest point may be the most essential. You say that the man came ten days ago and paid you for a fortnight's board and lodging. He asked my term, sir. I said fifty shillings a week. There is a small sitting-room and bedroom, and all complete at the top of the house. Well, he said I'll pay you five pounds a week if I can have it on my own terms. I'm a poor woman, sir, and Mr. Warren earns little, and the money meant much to me. He took out a ten-pound note, and he held it out to me then and there. You can have the same every fortnight for a long time to come if you keep the terms, he said. If not, I'll have no more to do with you. What were the terms? Well, sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house. That was all right. Lodgers often have them. Also, that he was to be left entirely to himself and never upon any excuse to be disturbed. Nothing wonderful in that, surely? Not in reason, sir. But this is out of all reason. He's been there for ten days, and neither Mr. Warren nor I, nor the girl, has once set eyes upon him. We can hear that quick step of his pacing up and down, up and down, night, morning, and noon, but except on that first night he had never once gone out of the house. Oh, he went out the first night, did he? Yes, sir, and returned very late, after we were all in bed. He told me after he had taken the rooms that he would do so and asked me not to bar the door. I heard him come up the stair after midnight. But his meals? It was his particular direction that we should always, when he rang, leave his meal upon a chair outside his door. Then he rings again when he was finished, and we take it down from the same chair. If he wants anything else, he prints it on a slip of paper and leaves it. Prints it? Yes, sir, prints it in pencil. Just the word, nothing more. Here's the one I brought to show you. Soap. Here's another. Match. This is the one he left the first morning. Daily Gazette. I leave that paper with his breakfast every morning. Dear me, Watson, said home staring with great curiosity at the slips of fool's cap which the landlady had handed to him. This is certainly a little unusual. Seclusion I can understand. But why print? Printing is a clumsy process. Why not write? What would it suggest, Watson? Let he desire to conceal his handwriting. But why? What can it matter to him that his landlady should have a word of his writing? Still, it may be, as you say. Then again, why such laconic messages? I cannot imagine. It opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation. The words are written with a broad pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a not unusual pattern. You'll observe that the paper is torn away at the side, here after the printing was done, so that the S of soap is partly gone. Suggestive, Watson, is it not? Of caution? Exactly.  Now, Mrs. Warren, you say that the man was of middle size, dark and bearded. What age would he be? Youngish, sir. Not over thirty. Well, can you give me no further indications? He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought he was a foreigner by his accent. And he was well-dressed? Very smartly dressed, sir. Quite the gentleman. Dark clothes? Nothing you would note. He gave no name? No, sir. And has had no letters or callers? None. But surely you or the girl enter his room of a morning? No, sir. He looks after himself entirely. Dear me, that is certainly remarkable. What about his luggage? He had one big brown bag with him. Nothing else. Well, we don't seem to have much material to help us. Do you say nothing has come out of that room? Absolutely nothing. The landlady drew an envelope from her bag. From it she shook out two burnt matches and a cigarette end upon the table. They were on his tray this morning. I brought them because I had heard that you can read great things out of small ones. Holmes shrugged his shoulders. There's nothing here, said he. The matches have, of course, been used to light cigarettes. That is obvious from the shortness of the burnt end. Half the match is consumed in lighting a pipe or cigar. But dear me, this cigarette stub is certainly remarkable. The gentleman was bearded and moustached, you say. Yes, sir. I don't understand that. I should say that only a clean-shaven man could have smoked this. Why, Watson, even your modest moustache would have been singed. A holder, I suggested. No, no, the end is matted. I suppose there could not be two people in your rooms, Mrs. Warren. No, sir. He eats so little that I often wonder it can keep life in one. Well, I think we must wait for a little more material. After all, you have nothing to complain of. You have received your rent, and he is not a troublesome lodger, though he is certainly an unusual one. He pays you well, and if he chooses to lie concealed it is no direct business of yours. We have no excuse for an intrusion upon his privacy, until we have some reason to think that there is a guilty reason for it. I have taken up the matter, and I won't lose sight of it. Report to me if anything fresh occurs, and rely upon my assistance if it should be needed. There are certainly some points of interest in this case, Watson, he remarked, when the landlady had left us. It may, of course, be trivial, individual eccentricity, or it may be very much deeper than appears on the surface. The first thing that strikes one is the obvious possibility that the person now in the rooms may be entirely different from the one who engaged them. Why should you think so? Well, apart from this cigarette end, was it not suggestive that the only time the lodger went out was immediately after his taking the rooms. He came back, or someone came back, when all witnesses were out of the way. We have no proof that the person who came back was the person who went out. Then again the man who took the room spoke English well. This other, however, prints match, when it should have been, matches. I can imagine that the word was taken out of a dictionary which would give the noun, but not the plural. The laconic style may be to conceal the absence of knowledge of English. Yes, Watson, there are good reasons to suspect there has been a substitution of lodgers. But for what possible end? Ah, there lies our problem. There is one rather obvious line of investigation. He took down the great book in which, day by day, he filed the agony column of the various London journals. Dear me! said he, turning over the pages. What a chorus of groans, cries, and bleeding! What a rag-bag of singular happenings! But surely the most valuable hunting-ground that ever was given to a student of the unusual. This person is alone, and cannot be approached by letter without a breach of that absolute secrecy which is desired. How is any news or any message to reach him from without? Obviously by advertisement through a newspaper. There seems no other way, and fortunately we need concern ourselves with one paper only. Here are the daily gazette extracts of the last fortnight. Lady with a black boa at Prince's skating-club. That, we may pass. Surely Jimmy will not break his mother's heart. That appears to be irrelevant. If the lady who fainted on Brixton bus, she does not interest me. Every day my heart longs, bleat, Watson, unmitigated, bleat. Ah, this is a little more possible. Listen to this. Be patient. We'll find some sure means of communications. Meanwhile this column G. That is two days after Mrs. Warren's lodger arrived. It sounds plausible, does it not? The mysterious one could understand English even if he could not print it. Let us see if we can pick up the trace again. Yes, here we are. Three days later. Am making successful arrangements. Patience and prudence. The clouds will pass G. Nothing for a week after that. Then comes something much more definite. The path is clearing. If I find chance signal message remember code agreed. One A, two B, and so on. You will hear soon G. That was in yesterday's paper and there is nothing in today's. It's all very appropriate to Mrs. Warren's lodger. If we wait a little, Watson, I don't doubt that the affair will grow more intelligible. So it proved, for in the morning I found my friend standing on the hearth rug with his back to the fire and a smile of complete satisfaction upon his face. How's this, Watson? he cried, picking up the paper from the table. High red house with white stone facings. Third floor, second window left. After dusk, G. That is definite enough. I think after breakfast we must make a little reconnaissance of Mrs. Warren's neighbourhood. Ah, Mrs. Warren, what news do you bring us this morning? Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive energy which told us some new and momentous development. It's a police matter, Mr. Holmes, she cried. I'll have no more of it. He shall pack out of there with his baggage. I would have gone straight up and told him so. Only I thought it was but fair to you to take your opinion first. But I'm at the very end of my patience. And when it comes to knocking my old man about— Knocking Mr. Warren about? Using him roughly anyway. But who used him roughly? Ah, that's what we want to know. It was this morning, sir. Mr. Warren is a timekeeper at Morton and Waylights in Tottenham Court Road. He has to be out of the house before seven. Well, this morning he had not gone ten paces down the road when two men came up behind him, threw a coat over his head, and bundled him into a cab that was beside the curb. They drove him an hour, and then opened the door and shot him out. He lay in the roadway so shaken in his wits that he never saw what became of the cab. When he picked himself up, he found he was on Hampstead Heath, so he took a bus home, and there he lies now on his sofa, while I came straight round to tell you what had happened. Most interesting, said Holmes, did he observe the appearance of these men? Did he hear them talk? No, he is clean dazed. He just knows that he was lifted up as if by magic, and dropped as if by magic. Two at least were in it, and maybe three. And you connect this attack with your lodger? Well, we've lived there fifteen years, and no such happenings ever came before. I've had enough of him. Money's not everything. I'll have him out of my house before the day is done. Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren, do nothing rash. I begin to think that this affair may be very much more important than appeared at first sight. It is clear now that some danger is threatening your lodger.  On discovering their mistake, they released him. What they would have done had it not been a mistake, we can only conjecture. Well, what am I to do, Mr. Holmes? I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours, Mrs. Warren. I don't see how that is to be managed, unless you break in the door. I always hear him unlock it as I go down the stair after I leave the tray. He has to take the tray in. Surely we could conceal ourselves and see him do it. The landlady thought for a moment. Well, sir, there's the box-room opposite. I could arrange a looking-glass, maybe, and if you are behind the door. Excellent! said Holmes. When does he lunch? About once, sir. Then Dr. Watson and I will come round in time. For the present, Mrs. Warren, goodbye. At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of Mrs. Warren's house, a high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in Great Orm Street, a narrow thoroughfare at the north-east side of the British Museum. Standing as it does near the corner of the street, it commands a view down House Street with its more pretentious houses. Holmes pointed with a chuckle to one of these a row of residential flats, which projected so that they could not fail to catch the eye. See Watson, said he, high red house with stone facings. There is the signal station, all right. We know the place, and we know the code, so surely our task should be simple. There's a to-let card in that window. It is evidently an empty flat to which the confederate has access. Well, Mrs. Warren, what now? I have it all ready for you. I have it all ready for you. If you will both come up and leave your boots below on the landing, I'll put you there now. It was an excellent hiding-place which she had arranged. The mirror was so placed that, seated in the dark, we could very plainly see the door opposite. We had hardly settled down in it, and Mrs. Warren left us, when a distant tinkle announced that our mysterious neighbour had rung. Presently, the landlady appeared with the tray, laid it down upon a chair beside the closed door, and then, treading heavily, departed. Crouching together in the angle of the door, we kept our eyes fixed upon the mirror. Suddenly, as the landlady's footsteps died away, there was the creak of a turning key, the handle revolved, and two thin hands darted out and lifted the tray from the chair. An instant later it was hurriedly replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a dark, beautiful, horrified face glaring at the narrow opening of the box-room. Then the door crashed too, the key turned once more, and all was silence. Holmes twitched my sleeve, and together we stole down the stair. I will call again in the evening, said he to the expectant landlady. I think, Watson, we can discuss this business better in our own quarters. My surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct, said he, speaking from the depths of his easy chair. There has been a substitution of lodgers. What I did not foresee is that we should find a woman, and no ordinary woman, Watson. She saw us. Well, she saw something to alarm her, that is certain. The general sequence of events is pretty clear, is it not? A couple seek refuge in London from a very terrible and instant danger. The measure of that danger is the rigor of their precautions. The man, who has some work which he must do, desires to leave the woman in absolute safety while he does it. It is not an easy problem, but he solved it in an original fashion, and so effectively that her presence was not even known to the landlady who supplies her with food. The printed messages, as is now evident, were to prevent her sex being discovered by her writing. The man cannot come near the woman, or he will guide their enemies to her. Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he has recourse to the agony column of a paper. So far, all is clear. But what is at the root of it? Ah, yes, Watson, severely practical as usual. What is at the root of it all? Mrs. Warren's whimsical problem enlarges somewhat and assumes a more sinister aspect as we proceed. This much, we can say, that it is no ordinary love escapade. You saw the woman's face at the sign of danger. We have heard two of the attack upon the landlord which was undoubtedly meant for the lodger. These alarms, and the desperate need for secrecy, argue that the matter is one of life or death. The attack upon Mr. Warren further shows that the enemy, whoever they are, are themselves not aware of the substitution of the female lodger for the male. It is very curious and complex, Watson. Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from it? What indeed? It is art for art's sake, Watson. I suppose when you doctored you found yourself studying cases without thought of a fee? For my education, Holmes. Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last. This is an instructive case. There is neither money nor credit in it, and yet one would wish to tidy it up. When dust comes, we should find ourselves one stage advanced in our investigation. When we return to Mrs. Warren's rooms, the gloom of a London winter evening had thickened into one grey curtain, a dead monotone of colour, broken only by the sharp yellow squares of the windows and the blurred halos of the gas-lumps. As we peered from the darkened sitting-room of the lodging-house, one more dim light glimmered high up through the obscurity. Someone is moving in that room, said Holmes in a whisper. His gaunt and eager face thrust forward to the window-pane. Yes, I can see his shadow. There he is again. He has a candle in his hand. Now he is peering across. He wants to be sure that she is on the lookout. Now he begins to flash. Take the message also, Watson, that we may check each other. A single flash? That is A, surely. Now then, how many did you make it? Twenty? So did I. That should mean T. A, T. That's intelligible enough. Another T? Surely this is the beginning of a second word. Now then, TENTA? Dead stop. That can't be all, Watson. A TENTA. Gives no sense. Nor is it any better as three words. At, ten, tar. Unless T. A. are a person's initials. There it goes again. What's that? A-T-T-E. Why, it is the same message over again. Curious, Watson. Very curious. Now he's off once more. A-T. Why, he is repeating it for the third time. A-T-T-E-N-T-A. A ten tar. Three times. How often will he repeat it? No, that seems to be the finish. He's withdrawn from the window. What do you make of it, Watson? A cipher message, Holmes. My companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension. And not a very obscure cipher, Watson, said he. Why, of course. It is Italian. The A means that it is addressed to a woman. Beware, beware, beware. How's that, Watson? I believe you've hit it. No doubt of it. It is a very urgent message Thrice repeated to make it more so. But beware of what? Wait a bit. He's coming to the window once more. Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the whisk of the small flame across the window as the signals were renewed. They came more rapidly than before, so rapid that it was hard to follow them. Pericolo. Pericolo, eh? What's that, Watson? Danger, isn't it? Yes, by Jove. It's a danger signal. Here he goes again, Peri. Hello. What on earth? The light had suddenly gone out. The glimmering square of window had disappeared and the third floor formed a dark band round a lofty building with its tears of shining casements. That last warning cry had been suddenly cut short. How and by whom? The same thought occurred on the instant to us both. Holmes sprang up from where he crouched by the window. This is serious, Watson, he cried. There is some devilry going forward. Why should such a message stop in such a way? I should put Scotland Yard in touch with this business, and yet it is too pressing for us to leave. Shall I go for the police? We must define the situation a little more clearly. It may bear some more innocent interpretation. Come, Watson, let us go across ourselves and see what we can make of it. End of the Adventure of the Red Circle, Part 1 The Adventure of the Red Circle, Part 2 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Part 2 As we walked rapidly down House Street, I glanced back at the building which we'd left. There, dimly outlined at the top window, I could see the shadow of a head, a woman's head, gazing tensely, rigidly out into the night, waiting with breathless suspense for the renewal of that interrupted message. At the doorway of the House Street flats, a man muffled in a cravat and greatcoat, was leaning against the railing. He started as the hall light fell upon our faces. Homes, he cried. Why, Gregson, said my companion as he shook hands with the Scotland Yard Detective. Journeys end with lovers' meetings. What brings you here? The same reasons that brings you, I expect, said Gregson. How you got onto it, I can't imagine. Different threads, but leading up to the same tangle, I've been taking the signals. Signals? Yes, from that window. They broke off in the middle. We came over to see the reason. But since it is safe in your hands, I see no object in continuing this business. Wait a bit, cried Gregson eagerly. I'll do you this justice, Mr. Homes, that I was never in a case yet that I didn't feel stronger for having you on my side. There's only the one exit to these flats, so we have him safe. Who is he? Well, well, we score over you for once, Mr. Homes. You must give us best this time. He struck his stick sharply upon the ground, on which a cabman, his whip in his hand, sauntered over from a four-wheeler which stood on the far side of the street. May I introduce you to Mr. Sherlock Homes? he said to the cabman. This is Mr. Leverton of Pinkerton's American Agency. The hero of the Long Island Cave Mystery said Homes, Sir, I am pleased to meet you. The American, a quiet, business-like young man with a clean shaven, hatchet face, flushed up at the words of commendation. I am on the trail of my life now, Mr. Homes, said he, if I can get Giorgiano. What? Giorgiano of the Red Circle? Oh, he has a European fame, has he? Well, we've learned all about him in America. We know he's at the bottom of fifty murders, and yet with nothing positive we can take on him. I tracked him over from New York, and I've been close to him for a week in London, waiting for some excuse to get my hand on his collar. Mr. Gregson and I ran him to ground in that big tenement house, and there's only one door, so he can't slip us. There's three folk come out since he went in, but I'll swear he wasn't one of them. Mr. Homes talks of signals, said Gregson. I'll expect, as usually, knows a good deal that we don't. In a few clear words, Holmes explained the situation as it had appeared to us. The Americans struck his hands together with vexation. He's on to us, he cried. Why do you think so? Well, it figures out that way, does it not? Here he is sending out messages to an accomplice. There are several of his gang in London. Then suddenly, just as by your own account, he was telling them that there was danger, he broke short off. What could it mean except that from th