A Study In Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes) - Complete

This is the complete version of my readings of A Study in Scarlet, for those who would like to have it all in one place.

A Study in Scarlet is an 1887 detective novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle. The story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who would become the most famous detective duo in literature.

Transcript

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle CHAPTER I.

MR.

SHERLOCK HOLMES In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army.

Having completed my studies there,

I was duly attached to the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers as assistant surgeon.

The regiment was stationed in India at the time,

And before I could join it,

The Second Afghan War had broken out.

On landing at Bombay,

I learned that my corpse had advanced through the passes and was already deep in the enemy's country.

I followed,

However,

With many other officers who were in the same situation as myself,

And succeeded in reaching Kandahar in safety,

Where I found my regiment,

And at once entered upon my new duties.

The campaign brought honors and promotion to many,

But for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster.

I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires,

With whom I served at the fatal battle of Maywand.

There I was struck on the shoulder by a Gisaille bullet,

Which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery.

I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis,

Had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray,

My orderly,

Who threw me across a pack horse,

And succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.

Worn with pain and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone,

I was removed,

With a great train of wounded sufferers,

To the base hospital at Peshawar.

Here I rallied,

And had already improved so far as to be able to walk above the wards,

And even to bask a little upon the veranda,

When I was struck down by enteric fever,

That curse of our Indian possessions.

For months my life was despaired of,

And when at last I came to myself and became convalescent,

I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England.

I was dispatched,

Accordingly,

In the troop-ship Orontes,

And landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty,

With my health irretrievably ruined,

But with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.

I had neither kith nor kin in England,

And was therefore as free as air,

Or as free as an income of eleven shillings and six pence a day will permit a man to be.

Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to London,

That great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the empire are irresistibly drained.

There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand,

Leading a comfortless,

Meaningless existence,

And spending such money as I had,

Considerably more freely than I ought.

So alarming did the state of my finances become,

That I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country,

Or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living.

Choosing the latter alternative,

I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel,

And to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile.

On the very day that I had come to this conclusion,

I was standing at the Criterion Bar,

When someone tapped me on the shoulder,

And turning round I recognized young Stamford,

Who had been a dresser under me at Bart's.

The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man.

In old days Stamford had never been a particular crony of mine,

But now I hailed him with enthusiasm,

And he,

In his turn,

Appeared to be delighted to see me.

In the exuberance of my joy I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn,

And we started off together in a handsome.

"'Whatever have you been doing with yourself,

Watson?

' he asked in undisguised wonder,

As we rattled through the crowded London streets.

"'You are as thin as a lath,

And as brown as a nut.

' I gave him a short sketch of my adventures,

And had hardly concluded it by the time that we reached our destination.

"'Poor devil!

' he said,

Commiseratingly,

After he had listened to my misfortunes.

"'Where are you up to now?

' "'Looking for lodgings,

' I answered,

Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.

"'That's a strange thing,

' remarked my companion.

"'You are the second man to-day that has used that expression to me.

' "'And who was the first?

' I asked.

"'A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital.

He was bemoaning himself this morning,

Because he could not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found,

And which were too much for his purse.

"'By Jove!

' I cried,

"'if he really wants someone to share the rooms at the expense,

I am the very man for him.

I should prefer having a partner to being alone.

' Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine-glass.

"'You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet,

' he said.

"'Perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion.

' "'Why?

What is there against him?

' "'Oh,

I didn't say there was anything against him.

He is a little queer in his ideas,

And enthusiastic in some branches of science.

As far as I know,

He is a decent fellow enough.

' "'A medical student,

I suppose?

' said I.

"'No.

I have no idea what he intends to go in for.

I believe he is well up in anatomy,

And he is a first-class chemist.

But as far as I know,

He has never taken out any systematic medical classes.

His studies are very desultory and eccentric,

But he has amassed a lot out-of-the-way knowledge which would astonish his professors.

"'Did you never ask him what he was going in for?

' I asked.

"'No.

He is not a man that is easy to draw out,

Though he can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.

' "'I should like to meet him,

' I said.

"'If I am to lodge with anyone,

I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits.

I am not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement.

I had enough of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence.

How could I meet this friend of yours?

' "'He is sure to be at the laboratory,

' returned my companion.

"'He either avoids the place for weeks,

Or else he works there from morning to night.

If you like,

We shall drive round together after luncheon.

' "'Certainly,

' I answered,

And the conversation drifted away into other channels.

"'As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn,

Stamford gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman,

Whom I propose to take as a fellow lodger.

"'You mustn't blame me if you don't get on with him,

' he said.

"'I know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in the laboratory.

You proposed this arrangement,

So you must not hold me responsible.

"'If we don't get on,

It will be easy to part company,

' I answered.

"'It seems to me,

Stamford,

' I added,

Looking hard at my companion,

"'that you have some reason for washing your hands of the matter.

Is this fellow's temper so formidable,

Or what is it?

Don't be mealy-mouthed about it.

'" "'It is not easy to express the inexpressible,

' he answered with a laugh.

"'Home is a little too scientific for my taste.

It approaches to cold-bloodedness.

I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid,

Not out of malevolence,

You understand,

But simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects.

To do him justice,

I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness.

He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge.

'" "'Very right,

Too.

Yes,

But it may be pushed to excess.

When it comes to beating the subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick,

It is certainly taking rather a bizarre shape.

'" "'Beating the subjects?

Yes,

To verify how far bruises may be produced after death.

I saw him at it with my own eyes.

'" "'And yet you say he is not a medical student?

' "'No.

Heaven knows what the object of his studies are.

But here we are,

And you must form your own impressions about him.

As he spoke,

We turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small single door,

Which opened into a wing of the great hospital.

It was familiar ground to me,

And I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase and made our way down the long corridor with its vista of whitewashed wall and uncolored doors.

Near the further end,

A low arched passage branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory.

This was a lofty chamber,

Lined and littered with countless bottles.

Broad,

Low tables were scattered about,

Which bristled with retorts,

Test-tubes,

And little Bunsen lamps,

With their blue flickering flames.

There was only one student in the room,

Who was bending over a distant table absorbed in his work.

At the sound of our steps,

He glanced around and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure.

"'I have found it!

I have found it!

' he shouted to my companion,

Running towards us with a test-tube in his hand.

"'I have found the reagent,

Which is precipitated by hemoglobin,

And by nothing else.

' Had he discovered a goldmine,

Greater delight could not have shown upon his feature.

"'Dr.

Watson,

Mr.

Sherlock Holmes,

' said Stamford,

Introducing us.

"'How are you?

' he said cordially,

Whipping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit.

"'You have been in Afghanistan,

I perceive.

' "'How on earth did you know that?

' I asked in astonishment.

"'Never mind,

' said he,

Chuckling to himself.

"'The question now is about hemoglobin.

No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine?

' "'It is interesting,

Chemically,

No doubt,

' I answered.

"'But practically.

Why,

Man,

It is the most practical medical-legal discovery for years.

Don't you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood-stains?

Come over here now.

' He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness,

And drew me over to the table at which he had been working.

"'Let us have some fresh blood,

' he said,

Digging a long button into his finger,

And drawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette.

"'Now I add the small quantity of blood to a litter of water.

You perceive that the resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water.

The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million.

I have no doubt,

However,

That we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction.

' As he spoke,

He threw into the vessel a few white crystals,

And then added some drops of a transparent fluid.

In an instant the contents assumed a dull mahogany color,

And a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the glass jar.

"'Ha-ha!

' he cried,

Clapping his hands,

And looking as delighted as a child with a new toy.

"'What do you think of that?

' "'It seems to be a very delicate test,

' I remarked.

"'Beautiful,

Beautiful.

The old goiacum test was very clumsy and uncertain.

So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles.

The latter is valueless if the strains are a few hours old.

Now this appears to act as well whether the blood is old or new.

Had this test been invented,

There are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty of their crimes.

' "'Indeed,

' I murmured.

Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point.

A man is suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed.

His linen or clothes are examined,

And brownish stains discovered upon them.

Are they bloodstains?

Or mudstains?

Or ruststains?

Or fruitstains?

Or what are they?

That is a question which has puzzled many an expert.

And why?

Because there was no reliable test.

Now we have the Sherlock Holmes test,

And there will no longer be any difficulty.

' His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke,

And he put his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination.

"'You are to be congratulated,

' I remarked,

Considerably surprised at his enthusiasm.

There was the case of von Bischoff at Frankfurt last year.

He would certainly have been hung had this test been in existence.

Then there was Mason of Bradford,

And the notorious Muller,

And Leferver of Montpellier,

And Samson of New Orleans.

I could name a score of cases in which it would have been decisive.

"'You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,

' said Stanford with a laugh.

You might start a paper on those lines.

Call it the police news of the past.

' "'Very interesting reading it might be made,

Too,

' remarked Sherlock Holmes,

Sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick of his finger.

"'I have to be careful,

' he continued,

Turning to me with a smile,

For I dabble with poisons a good deal.

' He held out his hand as he spoke,

And I noticed that it was all mottled over with a similar piece of plaster,

And this color with strong acids.

"'We came here on business,

' said Stanford,

Sitting down on a high three-legged stool,

And pushing another one in my direction with his foot.

"'My friend here wants to take diggings,

And as you were complaining that you couldn't get no one to go halves with you,

I thought that I had better bring you together.

' Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with me.

"'I have my eye on a suit in Baker Street,

' he said,

"'which would suit us down to the ground.

You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco,

I hope?

' "'I always smoke ships to myself,

' I answered.

"'That's good enough.

I generally have chemicals about,

And occasionally do experiment.

Would that annoy you?

' "'By no means.

' "'Let me see.

What are my other shortcomings?

I get in the dump at times,

And don't open my mouth for days on end.

You must not think I am sulky when I do that.

Just let me alone,

And I'll soon be right.

What have you to confess now?

It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together.

' "'I laughed at this cross-examination.

"'I keep a bull pup,

' I said.

"'And I object to Rose because my nerves are shaken,

And I get up to all sorts of ungodly hours.

And I am extremely lazy.

I have another set of vices when I'm well,

But those are the principal ones at present.

' "'Do you include violin playing in your category of Rose?

' he asked anxiously.

"'It depends on the player,

' I answered.

"'A well-played violin is a treat for the gods.

' "'A badly played one?

' "'Oh,

That's all right,

' he cried with a merry laugh.

"'I think we may consider the thing as settled.

That is,

If the rooms are agreeable to you.

' "'When shall we see them?

' "'Call for me here at noon tomorrow,

And we'll go together and settle everything,

' he answered.

"'All right.

Noon exactly,

' said I,

Shaking his hand.

We left him working among his chemicals,

And we walked together towards my hotel.

"'By the way,

' I asked suddenly,

Stopping and turning upon Stanford,

"'how the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?

' "'My companion smiled an enigmatical smile.

"'That's just his little peculiarity,

' he said.

"'A good many people have wanted to know how he finds things out.

' "'Oh,

A mystery,

Is it?

' I cried,

Rubbing my hands.

"'This is very piquant.

I am much obliged to you for bringing us together.

The proper study of mankind is man,

You know.

"'You must study him,

Then,

' Stanford said,

As he bade me good-byes.

"'You'll find him a naughty problem,

Though.

I'll wager he learns more about you than you about him.

"'Good-bye.

' "'Good-bye,

' I answered,

And strolled on to my hotel,

Considerably interested in my new acquaintance.

CHAPTER II.

THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION We met next day as he had arranged,

And inspected the rooms at No.

221-B,

Baker Street,

Of which he had spoken at our meeting.

They consisted of a couple of comfortable bedrooms,

And a singular large airy sitting-room,

Cheerfully furnished,

And illuminated by two broad windows.

So desirable in every way were the apartments,

And so moderate did the terms seem when divided between us,

That the bargain was concluded upon the spot,

And we at once entered into possession.

That very evening I moved my things round from the hotel,

And on the following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several boxes and portmanteaus.

For a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking,

And laying out our property to the best advantage.

That done,

We gradually began to settle down,

And to accommodate ourselves to our new surroundings.

Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with.

He was quiet in his ways,

And his habits were regular.

It was rare for him to be up after ten at night,

And he had invariably breakfasted,

And gone out before I rose in the morning.

Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory,

Sometimes in the dissecting-rooms,

And occasionally in long walks,

Which appeared to take him into the lowest portions of the city.

Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him.

But now and again a reaction would seize him,

And for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room,

Hardly uttering a word,

Or moving a muscle from morning to night.

On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy,

Vacant expression in his eyes,

That I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic,

Had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.

As the weeks went by,

My interest in him and my curiosity as to his aims in life gradually deepened and increased.

His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer.

In height he was rather over six feet,

And so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller.

His eyes were sharp and piercing,

Save during those intervals of turpor,

To which I have alluded,

And his thin,

Hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision.

His chin,

Too,

Had a prominence and squareness which marked the man of determination.

His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals.

Yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch,

As I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.

The reader may set down as a hopeless busybody,

When I confess how much this man stimulated my curiosity,

And how often I endeavored to break through the reticence which he showed in all that concerned himself.

Before pronouncing judgment,

However,

Be it remembered how objectless was my life,

And how little there was to engage my attention.

My health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather was exceptionally genial,

And I had no friends who would call upon me and break the monotony of my daily existence.

Under these circumstances,

I eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung around my companion,

And spent much of my time in endeavoring to unravel it.

He was not studying medicine.

He had himself,

In reply to a question,

Confirmed Stanford's opinion upon that point.

Neither did he appear to have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in science,

Or any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance into the learned world.

Yet his zeal for certain studies was remarkable,

And within eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample and minute,

That his observations have fairly astounded me.

Surely no man would work so hard or attain such precise information unless he had some definite end in view.

Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning.

No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.

Of contemporary literature,

Philosophy,

And politics,

He appeared to know next to nothing.

Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle,

He inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done.

My surprise reached a climax,

However,

When I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican theory and of the composition of the solar system,

That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travel round the sun,

Appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

You appear to be astonished,

He said,

Smiling at my expression of surprise.

Now that I do know it,

I shall do my best to forget it.

To forget it?

You see,

He explained,

I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic,

And you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.

A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across,

So that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out,

Or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things,

So that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it.

Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic.

He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work,

But of these he has a large assortment,

And all in the most perfect order.

It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent.

Depend upon it,

There comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.

It is of the highest importance,

Therefore,

Not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

But the solar system!

I protested.

What deduce is it to me?

He interrupted impatiently.

You say that we go round the sun.

If we went round the moon,

It would not make a penny worth of difference to me or to my work.

I was on the point of asking him what that work might be,

But something in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one.

I pondered over our short conversation,

However,

And endeavored to draw my deductions from it.

He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object.

Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would be useful to him.

I enumerated in my own mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally well informed.

I even took a pencil and jotted them down.

I could not help smiling at the document when I had completed it.

It ran in this way.

1.

Knowledge of literature.

Nill.

2.

Philosophy.

Nill.

3.

Astronomy.

Nill.

4.

Politics.

Feeble.

5.

Botany.

Variable.

Well up in belladonna,

Opium,

And poisons generally.

Knows nothing of practical gardening.

6.

Science.

Feeble.

7.

History.

Feeble.

8.

History.

Feeble.

9.

History.

Feeble.

10.

History.

Feeble.

11.

History.

Feeble.

12.

History.

Feeble.

13.

History.

Feeble.

14.

History.

Feeble.

15.

History.

Feeble.

16.

History.

Feeble.

17.

History.

Feeble.

18.

History.

Feeble.

19.

History.

Feeble.

19.

History.

Feeble.

20.

History.

Feeble.

21.

History.

Feeble.

22.

History.

Feeble.

23.

History.

Feeble.

24.

History.

Feeble.

25.

History.

Feeble.

26.

History.

Feeble.

27.

History.

Feeble.

28.

History.

Feeble.

29.

History.

Feeble.

30.

History.

Feeble.

31.

History.

Feeble.

32.

History.

Feeble.

33.

History.

Feeble.

34.

History.

Feeble.

35.

History.

Feeble.

36.

History.

Feeble.

37.

History.

Feeble.

38.

History.

Feeble.

39.

History.

Feeble.

40.

History.

Feeble.

41.

History.

Feeble.

42.

History.

Feeble.

43.

History.

Feeble.

44.

History.

Feeble.

45.

History.

Feeble.

46.

History.

F 47.

History.

Feeble.

47.

History.

Feeble.

48.

History.

Feeble.

49.

History.

Feeble.

50.

History.

Feeble.

51.

History.

Feeble.

52.

History.

Feeble.

53.

History.

Feeble.

54.

History.

Feeble.

55.

History.

Feeble.

56.

History.

Feeble.

57.

History.

Feeble.

58.

History.

Feeble.

59.

History.

Feeble.

60.

History.

Feeble.

61.

History.

Feeble.

62.

History.

Feeble.

63.

History.

Feeble.

64.

History.

Feeble.

65.

History.

Feeble.

66.

History.

Feeble.

66.

History.

Feeble.

67.

History.

Feeble.

68.

History.

Feeble.

69.

History.

Feeble.

69.

History.

Feeble.

70.

History.

Feeble.

71.

History.

F 72.

History.

Feeble.

73.

History.

Feeble.

74.

History.

Feeble.

75.

History.

Feeble.

76.

History.

Feeble.

77.

History.

Feeble.

78.

History.

Feeble.

79.

History.

Feeble.

80.

History.

Feeble.

81.

History.

Feeble.

82.

History.

Feeble.

83.

History.

Feeble.

84.

History.

Feeble.

85.

History.

Feeble.

86.

History.

Feeble.

87.

History.

Feeble.

88.

History.

Feeble.

89.

History.

Feeble.

90.

History.

Feeble.

91.

History.

Feeble.

92.

History.

Feeble.

93.

History.

Feeble.

94.

History.

Feeble.

95.

History.

Feeble.

96.

History.

Feeble.

96.

History.

Feeble.

97.

History.

Feeble.

98.

History.

F These were very remarkable,

But as eccentric as all his other accomplishments.

That he could play pieces,

And difficult pieces,

I knew well,

Because at my request he has played me some of Mendelssohn's Lieder and other favorites.

When left to himself,

However,

He would seldom produce any music or attempt any recognized air.

Leaning back in his armchair of an evening,

He would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his knee.

Sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy.

Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful.

Clearly they reflected the thoughts which possessed him.

But whether the music aided those thoughts,

Or whether the playing was simply the result of a whim or fancy,

Was more than I could determine.

I might have rebelled against these exasperating solos,

Had it not been that he usually terminated them by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favorite airs,

As a slight compensation for the trial upon my patience.

During the first week or so,

We had no callers,

And I had begun to think that my companion was a friendless man,

As I was myself.

Presently,

However,

I found that he had many acquaintances,

And those in the most different classes of society.

There was one little sallow rat-faced,

Dark-eyed fellow who was introduced to me as Mr.

Lestrade,

And who came three or four times in a single week.

One morning,

A young girl called,

Fashionably dressed,

And stayed for half an hour or more.

The same afternoon brought a gray-headed,

Seedy visitor,

Looking like a Jew peddler,

Who appeared to me to be much excited,

And who was closely followed by a slipshod elderly woman.

On another occasion,

An old white-haired gentleman had an interview with my companion,

And on another,

A railway porter in his velveteen uniform.

When any of these nondescript individuals put in an appearance,

Sherlock Holmes used to beg for the use of the sitting-room,

And I would retire to my bedroom.

He always apologized to me for putting me to this inconvenience.

I have to use this room as a place of business,

He said,

And these people are my clients.

Again I had an opportunity of asking him a point-blank question,

And again my delicacy prevented me from forcing another man to confide in me.

I imagined at the time that he had some strong reason for not alluding to it,

But he soon dispelled the idea by coming round to the subject of his own accord.

It was upon the 4th of March,

As I have good reason to remember,

That I rose somewhat earlier than usual,

And found that Sherlock Holmes had not yet finished his breakfast.

The landlady had become so accustomed to my late habits,

That my place had not been laid nor my coffee prepared.

With the unreasonable petulance of mankind,

I rang the bell and gave a curt intimation that I was ready.

Then I picked up a magazine from the table,

And attempted to while away the time with it,

While my companion munched silently at his toast.

One of the articles had a pencil mark at the heading,

And I naturally began to run my eye through it.

Its somewhat ambitious title was The Book of Life,

And it attempted to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic examination of all that came in his way.

It struck me as being a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity.

The reasoning was close and intense,

But the deductions appeared to me to be far-fetched and exaggerated.

The writer claimed by a momentary expression,

A twitch of a muscle,

Or a glance of an eye,

To fathom a man's inmost thoughts.

Deceit,

According to him,

Was an impossibility in the case of one trained to observation and analysis.

His conclusions were as infallible as so many propositions of Euclid.

So startling would his results appear to the uninitiated,

That until they learned the process by which he had arrived at them,

They might well consider him a necromancer.

From a drop of water,

Said the writer,

A logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.

So all life is a great chain,

The nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it.

Like all other arts,

The science of deduction and analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study.

Nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it.

Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties,

Let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems.

Let him,

On meeting a fellow mortal,

Learn at a glance to distinguish the history of the man,

And the trade or profession to which he belongs.

Puerile as such an exercise may seem,

It sharpens the faculties of observation,

And teaches one where to look and what to look for.

By a man's fingernails,

By his coat-sleeves,

By his boot,

By his trouser-knees,

By the callosities of his forefinger and thumb,

By his expression,

By his shirt-cuffs,

By each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed.

That all United should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer,

In any case,

Is almost inconceivable.

What ineffable twaddle!

I cried,

Slutting the magazine down on the table.

I never read such rubbish in my life.

What is it?

Asked Sherlock Holmes.

Why this article?

I said,

Pointing at it with my egg-spoon as I sat down for my breakfast.

I see that you have read it since you have marked it.

I don't deny that it is smartly written.

It irritates me,

Though.

It is evidently the theory of some armchair lounger who evolves all these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study.

It is not practical.

I should like to see him clapped down in a third-class carriage on the underground,

And asked to give the trades of all his fellow travellers.

I would lay a thousand to one against him.

You would lose your money,

Sherlock Holmes remarked calmly.

As for the article,

I wrote it myself.

You?

Yes,

I have a turn both for observation and for deduction.

The theories which I have expressed there,

And which appear to you to be so chimerical,

Are really extremely practical.

So practical,

That I depend upon them for my bread and cheese.

And how?

I asked involuntarily.

Well,

I have a trade of my own.

I suppose I am the only one in the world.

I am a consulting detective,

If you can understand what that is.

Here in London we have lots of government detectives,

And lots of private ones.

When these fellows are at fault,

They come to me,

And I manage to put them on the right scent.

They lay all the evidence before me,

And I am generally able,

By the help of my knowledge of the history of a crime,

To set them straight.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds,

And if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger-end,

It is odd if you can't unravel the thousand and first.

Lestrade is a well-known detective.

He got himself into a fog recently over a forgery case,

And that was what brought him here.

And these other people?

They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies.

They are people who are in trouble about something,

And want a little enlightenment.

I listen to their stories,

They listen to my comments,

And then I pocket my fee.

But do you mean to say,

I said,

That without leaving your room,

You can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of,

Although they have seen every detail for themselves?

Quite so.

I have a kind of intuition that way.

Now and again a case turns up which is a little more complex.

Then I have to bustle about and see things with my own eyes.

You see,

I have a lot of special knowledge,

Which I apply to the problem,

And which facilities matters wonderfully.

Those rules of deduction,

Laid down in that article which aroused your scorn,

Are invaluable to me in practical work.

Observation with me is second nature.

You appeared to be surprised when I told you,

On our first meeting,

That you had come from Afghanistan.

You were told,

No doubt.

Nothing of the sort.

I knew you came from Afghanistan.

From long habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind,

That I arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps.

There were such steps,

However.

The train of reasoning ran.

Here is a gentleman of medical type,

But with the air of a military man.

Clearly an army doctor,

Then.

He has just come from the tropics,

For his face is dark,

And that is not the natural tint of his skin,

For his wrists are fair.

He has undergone hardships and sickness,

As his haggard face says clearly.

His left arm has been injured.

He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner.

Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen so much hardship,

And got his arm wounded?

Clearly in Afghanistan.

The whole train of thought did not occupy a second.

I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan,

And you were astonished.

It is simple enough as you explain it,

I said,

Smiling.

You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupont.

I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories.

Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe.

No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupont,

He observed.

Now,

In my opinion,

Dupont was a very inferior fellow.

That trick of his of breaking in on his friends,

Thoughts with an apropos remark,

After a quarter of an hour's silence,

Is really very showy and superficial.

He had some analytical genius,

No doubt,

But he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.

Have you read Gaboriot's works?

I asked.

Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?

Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically.

Lecoq was a miserable bungler,

He said in an angry voice.

He had only one thing to recommend him,

And that was his energy.

That book made me positively ill.

The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner.

I could have done it in twenty-four hours.

Lecoq took six months or so.

It might be made a textbook for detectives to teach them what to avoid.

I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired treated in this cavalier style.

I walked over to the window and stood looking out into the busy street.

This fellow may be very clever,

I said to myself,

But he is certainly very conceited.

There are no crimes and no criminals in these days,

He said,

Curiously.

What is the use of having brains in our profession?

I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous.

No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done.

And what is the result?

There is no crime to detect.

Or,

At most,

Some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.

I was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation.

I thought it best to change the topic.

I wonder what that fellow is looking for,

I asked,

Pointing to a stalwart,

Plainly dressed individual,

Who was walking slowly down the other side of the street,

Looking anxiously at the numbers.

He had a large blue envelope in his hand,

And was evidently the bearer of a message.

You mean the retired sergeant of marines,

Said Sherlock Holmes.

Bragg and Bownes,

Thought I to myself.

He knows that I cannot verify his guess.

The thought had hardly passed through my mind when that man whom we were watching caught sight of the number on our door,

And ran rapidly across the roadway.

We heard a loud knock,

A deep voice below,

And heavy steps ascending the stair.

For Mr.

Sherlock Holmes,

He said,

Stepping into the room and handing my friend the letter.

Here was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him.

He little thought of this when he made that random shot.

May I ask,

My lad,

I said in the blandest voice,

What your trade may be?

Commissioner,

Sir,

He said gruffly,

Uniform away for repairs.

And you were,

I asked,

With a slightly malicious glance at my companion.

A surgeon,

Sir.

Royal Marine Light Infantry,

Sir.

No answer?

Right,

Sir.

He clicked his heels together,

Raised his hand in a salute,

And was gone.

CHAPTER III.

THE LORISTON GARDEN'S MYSTERY.

I confess that I was considerably startled by this fresh proof of the practical nature of my companion's theories.

My respect for his powers of analysis increased wondrously.

There still remained some lurking suspicion in my mind,

However,

That the whole thing was a prearranged episode intended to dazzle me,

Though what earthly object he could have in taking me in was past my comprehension.

When I looked at him,

He had finished reading the note,

And his eyes had assumed the vacant,

Lackluster expression which showed mental abstraction.

How in the world did you deduce that?

I asked.

Deduce what?

Said he,

Petulantly.

Why,

That he was a retired sergeant of marines.

I have no time for trifles,

He answered,

Brusquely,

Then with a smile.

Excuse my rudeness.

You broke the thread of my thoughts.

But perhaps it is as well.

So you actually were not able to see that that man was a sergeant of marines?

No,

Indeed.

It was easier to know it than to explain why I knew it.

If you were asked to prove that two and two made four,

You might find some difficulty,

And yet you are quite sure of the fact.

Even across the street I could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the fellow's hand.

That smacked off the sea.

He had a military carriage,

However,

And regulation-side whiskers.

There we have the marine.

He was a man with some amount of self-importance,

And a certain air of command.

He must have observed the way in which he held his head and swung his cane.

A steady,

Respectable,

Middle-aged man,

Too,

On the face of him.

All facts which led me to believe that he had been a sergeant.

Wonderful,

I ejaculated.

Commonplace,

Said Holmes.

Though I thought from his expression that he was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration,

I said just now that there were no criminals.

It appears that I am wrong.

Look at this.

He threw me over the note which the commissioner had brought.

Why,

I cried,

As I cast my eyes over it,

This is terrible.

It does seem to be a little out of the common,

He remarked calmly.

Would you mind reading it to me aloud?

This is the letter which I read to him.

My dear Mr.

Sherlock Holmes.

There has been a bad business during the night at three,

Laurenston Gardens,

Off the Brixton Road.

Our man on the beat saw a light there about two in the morning,

And as the house was an empty one,

Suspected that something was amiss.

He found the door open,

And in the front room which is bare of furniture,

Discovered the body of a gentleman,

Well-dressed,

And having cards in his pocket bearing the name of Enoch J.

Drebber,

Cleveland,

Ohio,

USA.

There had been no robbery,

Nor is there any evidence as to how the man met his death.

There are marks of blood in the room,

But there is no wound upon this person.

We are at a loss as to how he came into the empty house.

Indeed,

The whole affair is a puzzler.

If you can come round to the house any time before twelve,

You will find me there.

I have left everything in status quo until I hear from you.

If you are unable to come,

I shall give you fuller details,

And would esteem it a great kindness if you would favor me with your opinion.

Yours faithfully,

Tobias Gregson.

Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders,

My friend remarked.

He and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot.

They are both quick and energetic,

But conventional.

Shockingly so.

They have their knives into one another,

Too.

They are as jealous as a pair of professional beauties.

There will be some fun over the skates if they are both put upon the scent.

I was amazed at the calm way in which she rippled on.

Surely there is not a moment to be lost,

I cried.

Shall I go and order you a cab?

I am not sure about whether I shall go.

I am the most incurably lazy devil that has ever stood in shoe leather.

That is,

When the fit is on me.

For I can be spry enough at times.

Why,

It is just such a chance as you have been longing for.

My dear fellow,

What does it matter to me?

Supposing I unravel the whole matter.

You may be sure that Gregson,

Lestrade and company will pocket all the credit.

That comes of being an unofficial personage.

But he begs you to help him.

Yes,

He knows that I am his superior and acknowledges it to me.

That he would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third person.

However,

We may as well go and have a look.

I shall work it out on my own hook.

I may have a laugh at them if I have nothing else.

Come on.

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

Get your hat,

He said.

You wish me to come?

Yes,

If you have nothing better to do.

A minute later we were both in a handsome,

Driving furiously for the Brixton Road.

It was a foggy,

Cloudy morning and a dun-colored veil hung over the housetops,

Looking like the reflection of the mud-colored streets beneath.

My companion was in the best of spirits and prattled away about Cremona Fills and the difference between a Stradivarius and an Anamati.

As for myself,

I was silent.

For the dull weather and the melancholy business upon which we were engaged depressed my spirits.

You don't seem to give much thought to the matter in hand,

I said at last,

Interrupting Holmes's musical disquisition.

No data yet,

He answered.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence.

It biases the judgment.

You will have your data soon,

Pointing with my finger.

This is the Brixton Road,

And that is the house,

If I am not very much mistaken.

So it is.

Stop,

Driver,

Stop!

We were still a hundred yards or so from it,

But he insisted upon our alighting,

And we finished our journey upon foot.

No.

3,

Loriston Gardens,

Were an ill-omened and minotorial look.

It was one of four which stood back some little way from the street,

Two being occupied and two being empty.

The latter looked out with three tiers of vacant melancholy windows,

Which were blank and dreary.

Save that here and there a two-let card had developed like a cataract upon the bleared panes.

A small garden sprinkled over with a scattered eruption of sickly plants separated each of these houses from the street,

And was traversed by a narrow pathway,

Yellowish in color,

And consisting apparently of a mixture of clay and of gravel.

The whole place was very sloppy from the rain which had fallen through the night.

The garden was bounded by a three-foot brick wall with a fringe of wood rails upon the top,

And against this wall was leaning a stalwart police constable,

Surrounded by a small knot of loafers,

Who craned their necks and strayed their eyes in the vain hope of catching some glimpses of the proceedings within.

I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once have hurried into the house and plodged into a study of the mystery.

Nothing appeared to be further from his intention.

With an air of nonchalance,

Which,

Under the circumstances,

Seemed to me to border upon the affectionate,

He lounged up and down the pavement,

He gazed vacantly at the ground,

The sky,

The opposite houses,

And the line of railings.

Having finished his scrutiny,

He proceeded slowly down the path,

Or rather down the fringes of grass,

Which flanked the path,

Keeping his eyes riveted upon the ground.

Twice he stopped,

And once I saw him smile,

And heard him utter an exclamation of satisfaction.

There were many marks of footsteps upon the wet,

Clayey soil,

But since the police had been coming and going over it,

I was unable to see how my companion could hope to learn anything from it.

Still,

I had had such extraordinary evidence of the quickness of his perceptive faculties,

That I had no doubt that he could see a great deal which was hidden from me.

At the door of the house we were met by a tall,

White-faced,

Flaxen-haired man,

With a notebook in his hand,

Who rushed forward and wrung my companion's hand with effusion.

It is indeed kind of you to come,

He said.

I have had everything left untouched.

Except that,

My friend answered,

Pointing at the pathway.

If a herd of buffaloes had passed along,

There could be no greater mess.

No doubt,

However,

You had drawn your own conclusions,

Grexen,

Before you permitted this.

I have had so much to do inside the house,

The detective said evasively.

My colleague,

Mr.

Lestrade,

Is here.

I had relied upon him to look after this.

Holmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically.

With two such men as yourself and Lestrade upon the ground,

There will not be much for a third party to find out,

He said.

Grexen rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way.

I think we have done all that can be done,

He answered.

It's a queer case,

Though,

And I knew your taste for such things.

You did not come here in a cab?

Asked Sherlock Holmes.

No,

Sir.

Nor Lestrade?

No,

Sir.

Then let us go and look in the room.

With which inconsequent remark he strode on into the house,

Followed by Grexen,

Whose features expressed his astonishment.

A short passage,

Bare,

Planked,

And dusty,

Led to the kitchen and offices.

Two doors opened out of it,

To the left and to the right.

One of these had obviously been closed for many weeks.

The other belonged to the dining-room,

Which was the apartment in which the mysterious affair had occurred.

Holmes walked in,

And I followed him with that subdued feeling at my heart which the presence of death inspires.

It was a large square room,

Looking all the larger from the absence of all furniture.

A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls,

But it was blotched in places with mildew,

And here and there great strips had become detached and hung down,

Exposing the yellow plaster beneath.

Opposite the door was a showy fireplace,

Surmounted by a mantelpiece of imitation white marble.

On one corner of this was stuck the stump of a red wax candle.

The solitary window was so dirty that the light was hazy and uncertain,

Giving a dull great tinge to everything,

Which was intensified by the thick layer of dust which coated the whole apartment.

All these details I observed afterwards.

At present,

My attention was centered upon the single grim,

Motionless figure,

Which lay stretched upon the boards.

With vacant,

Sightless eyes,

Staring up at the discolored ceiling.

It was that of a man about forty-three or forty-four years of age,

Middle-sized,

Broad-shouldered,

With crisp,

Curling black hair,

And a short,

Stubbly beard.

He was dressed in a heavy,

Broadcloth frock coat and waistcoat,

With light-colored trousers and immaculate collar and cuffs.

A top-hat,

Well brushed and trimmed,

Was placed upon the floor beside him.

His hands were clenched,

And his arms thrown abroad,

While his lower limbs were interlocked,

As though his death-struggle had been a grievous one.

On his rigid face there stood an expression of horror,

And,

As it seemed to me,

Of hatred,

Such as I have never seen upon human features.

This malignant and terrible contortion,

Combined with a low forehead,

Blunt nose,

And prognatious jaw,

Gave the dead man a singularly simeous and ape-like appearance,

Which was increased by his writhing,

Unnatural posture.

I have seen death in many forms,

But never has it appeared to me in a more fearsome aspect than in that dark,

Grimy apartment,

Which looked out upon one of the main arteries of suburban London.

Lestrade,

Lean and ferret-like as ever,

Was standing by the doorway,

And greeted my companion and myself.

This case will make a stir,

Sir,

He remarked.

It beats anything I have seen,

And I am no chicken.

There is no clue?

Said Gregson.

None at all,

Chimed in Lestrade.

Sherlock Holmes approached the body,

And,

Kneeling down,

Examined it intently.

You are sure that there is no wound?

He asked,

Pointing to numerous gouts and splashes of blood which lay around.

Positive,

Cried both detectives.

Then,

Of course,

This blood belongs to a second individual,

Presumably the murderer,

If murder has been committed.

It reminds me of the circumstances attendant on the death of Van Jansen in Utrecht,

In the year 34.

Do you remember the case,

Gregson?

No,

Sir.

Read it up,

You really should.

There is nothing new under the sun.

It has all been done before.

As he spoke,

His numble fingers were flying here,

There,

And everywhere,

Feeling,

Pressing,

Unbuttoning,

Examining,

While his eyes wore the same far-away expression which I have already remarked upon.

So swiftly was the examination made,

That one would hardly have guessed the minuteness with which it was conducted.

Finally,

He sniffed the dead man's lips,

And then glanced at the soles of his patent leather boots.

He has not been moved at all,

He asked.

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

You can take him to the mortuary now,

He said.

There is nothing more to be learned.

Gregson had a stretcher and four men at hand.

At his call they entered the room,

And the stranger was lifted and carried out.

As they raised him,

A ring tinkled down and rolled across the floor.

Lestrade grabbed it up and stared at it with mystified eyes.

There's been a woman here,

He cried.

It's a woman's wedding ring.

He held it out as he spoke,

Upon the palm of his hand.

We all gathered round him and gazed at it.

There could be no doubt that that circle of plain gold had once adorned the finger of a bride.

This complicates matters,

Said Gregson.

Heaven knows they were complicated enough before.

You're sure it doesn't simplify them?

Observed Holmes.

There's nothing to be learned by staring at it.

What did you find in his pocket?

We have it all here,

Said Gregson,

Pointing to a litter of objects upon one of the bottom steps of the stairs.

A gold watch,

Number 97163,

By Barod,

Of London.

Gold Albert chain,

Very heavy and solid.

Gold ring with Masonic device.

Gold pin,

Bulldog's head,

With rubies as eyes.

Russian leather card case,

With cards of Enoch G.

Drebber,

Of Cleveland,

Corresponding with the EGD,

Upon the linen.

No purse,

But loose money to the extent of £7.

13.

Pocket edition of Boccaccio's Decameron,

With name of Joseph Stengersen,

Upon the flyleaf.

Two letters,

One addressed to E.

J.

Drebber,

And one to Joseph Stengersen.

At what address?

American Exchange,

Strand,

To be left till called for.

They are both from the Guyon Steamship Company,

And refer to the sailing of their boats from Liverpool.

It is clear that this unfortunate man was about to return to New York.

Have you made any inquiries as to this man,

Stengersen?

I did at once,

Sir,

Said Gregson.

I have had advertisements sent to all the newspapers,

And one of my men has gone to the American Exchange,

But has not yet returned.

Have you sent to Cleveland?

We telegraphed this morning.

How did you award your inquiries?

We simply detailed the circumstances,

And said that we should be glad of any information which could help us.

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

I asked about Stengersen.

Nothing else?

Is there no circumstance on which this whole case appears to hinge?

Will you not telegraph again?

I have said all I have to say,

Said Gregson in an offended voice.

Sherlock Holmes chuckled to himself,

And appeared to be about to make some remark,

When Lestrade,

Who had been in the front room while we were holding this conversation in the hall,

Reappeared upon the stage,

Rubbing his hands in a pompous and self-satisfied manner.

Mr.

Gregson,

He said,

I have just made a discovery of the highest importance,

And one which would have been overlooked had I not made a careful examination of the walls.

The little man's eyes sparkled as he spoke,

And he was evidently in a state of suppressed exultation at having scored a point against his colleague.

Come here,

He said,

Bustling back into the room,

The atmosphere of which felt clearer since the removal of this ghastly inmate.

Now stand there.

He struck a match on his boot,

And held it up against the wall.

Look at that,

He said triumphantly.

I have remarked that the paper had fallen away in parts.

In this particular corner of the room,

A large piece had peeled off.

Leaving a yellow square,

Of course,

Plastering.

Across this bare space,

There was,

Scrawled in blood-red letters,

A single word.

RATCH What do you think of that?

Cried the detective,

With the air of a showman exhibiting his show.

This was overlooked because it was in the darkest corner of the room,

And no one thought of looking there.

The murderer has written it with his or her own blood.

See this smear where it has trickled down the wall?

That disposes of the idea of suicide anyhow.

Why was that corner chosen to write it on?

I will tell you.

See that candle on the mantelpiece?

It was lit at the time,

And if it was lit,

This corner would be the brightest,

Instead of the darkest,

Portion of the wall.

And what does it mean now that you have found it?

Asked Gregson in a depreciatory voice.

Mean?

Why,

It means that the writer was going to put the female name Rachel,

But was disturbed before he or she had time to finish.

You mark my words,

When this case comes to be cleared up,

You will find that a woman named Rachel has something to do with it.

It's all very well for you to laugh,

Mr.

Sherlock Holmes.

You may be very smart and clever,

But the old hound is the best,

When all is said and done.

I really beg your pardon,

Said my companion,

Who had ruffled the little man's temper by bursting into an explosion of laughter.

You certainly have the credit of being the first of us to find this out,

And,

As you say,

It bears every mark of having been written by the other participant in last night's mystery.

I have not had time to examine this room yet,

But with your permission,

I shall do so now.

As he spoke,

He whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying glass from his pocket.

With these two implements,

He trotted noiselessly about the room,

Sometimes stopping,

Occasionally kneeling,

And once laying flat upon his face.

So engrossed was he with his occupation,

That he appeared to have forgotten our presence,

For he chattered away to himself under his breath the whole time,

Keeping up a running fire of exclamations,

Groans,

Whistles,

And little cries suggestive of encouragement and of hope.

As I watched him,

I was irresistibly reminded of a pure-blooded,

Well-trained foxhound as it dashes backwards and forwards through the covert,

Whining in its eagerness,

Until it comes across the lost scent.

For twenty minutes or more,

He continued his research,

Measuring with the most exact care the distance between marks which were entirely invisible to me,

And occasionally applying his tape to the walls in an equally incomprehensible manner.

In one place,

He gathered up very carefully a little pile of grey dust from the floor,

And packed it away in an envelope.

Finally,

He examined with his glass the word upon the wall,

Going over every letter of it with the most minute exactness.

This done,

He appeared to be satisfied,

For he replaced his tape and his glass in his pocket.

''They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,

'' he remarked with a smile.

''It's a very bad definition,

But it does apply to detective work.

'' Grexen and Lestrade had watched the manoeuvres of their amateur companion with considerable curiosity and some contempt.

They evidently failed to appreciate the fact,

Which I had begun to realize,

That Sherlock Holmes' smallest actions were all directed at him.

''What do you think of it,

Sir?

'' they both asked.

''It would be robbing you of the credit of the case if I was to presume to help you,

'' remarked my friend.

''You are doing so well now that it would be a pity for anyone to interfere.

'' There was a whirl of sarcasm in his voice as he spoke.

''What do you think of it,

Sir?

'' ''It would be robbing you of the credit of the case if I was to presume to help you.

'' There was a whirl of sarcasm in his voice as he spoke.

''If you will let me know how your investigations go,

'' he continued,

''I shall be happy to give you any help I can.

In the meantime,

I should like to speak to the constable who found the body.

Can you give me his name and address?

'' Lestrade glanced at his notebook.

''John Rance,

'' he said.

''He is off duty now.

You will find him at 46 Audley Court,

Kennington,

Parkgate.

'' Holmes took a note of the address.

''Come along,

Doctor,

'' he said.

''We shall go and look him up.

I'll tell you one thing which may help you in the case,

'' he continued,

Turning to the two detectives.

''There has been a murder done,

And the murderer was a man.

'' He was more than six feet high,

Was in the prime of his life,

Had small feet for his height,

Wore coarse,

Square-toed boots,

And smoked a Trichonopoly cigar.

He came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab,

Which was drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his off-four leg.

In all probability,

The murderer had a florid face,

And the fingernails of his right hand were remarkably long.

''These are only a few indications,

But they may assist you.

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

''This man was murdered.

How was it done?

'' asked the former.

''Poisoned,

'' said Sherlock Holmes curtly,

And strode off.

''One other thing,

Lestrade,

'' he added,

Turning round at the door.

''Rash'' is the German for revenge.

''So don't lose your time looking for Miss Rachel.

'' With which Parthian shot he walked away,

Leaving the two rivals open-mouthed behind him.

CHAPTER IV WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL It was one o'clock when we left No.

3,

Loriston Gardens.

Sherlock Holmes led me to the nearest telegraph office,

Whence he dispatched a long telegram,

And then hailed a cab,

And ordered the driver to take us to the address given us by Lestrade.

''There is nothing like first-hand evidence,

'' he remarked.

''As a matter of fact,

There is.

''There is nothing like first-hand evidence,

'' he remarked.

''As a matter of fact,

My mind is entirely made up upon the case.

But still we may learn all that is to be learned.

'' ''You amaze me,

Holmes,

'' said I.

''Surely you are not as sure as you pretend to be of all those particulars which you gave?

'' ''There's no room for a mistake,

'' he answered.

The very first thing which I observed on arriving here was that a cab had made two ruts with his wheels close to the curb.

Now,

Up to last night we have had no rain for a week,

So that those wheels which left such a deep impression must have been there during the night.

There were the marks of a horse's hoofs,

Too,

The outline of one of which was far more clearly cut than that of the other three,

Showing that was a new shoe.

Since the cab was there after the rain began,

And was not there at any time during the morning,

I have Gregson's word for that.

It follows that it must have been there during the night,

And,

Therefore,

That it brought those two individuals to the house.

'' ''That seems simple enough,

'' said I.

''But how about the other man's height?

'' ''Why,

The height of a man,

In nine cases out of ten,

Can be told from the length of his stride.

It is a simple calculation enough,

Though there is no use my boring you with figures.

I had this fellow's stride both on the clay outside and on the dust within.

Then I had a way of checking my calculations.

When a man writes on a wall,

His instinct leads him to write about the level of his own eyes.

Now that writing was just over six feet from the ground,

It was child's play.

'' ''And his age?

'' I asked.

''Well,

If a man can stride four and a half feet without the smallest effort,

He can't be quite in the seer and yellow.

That was the breadth of a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked across.

Patent leather boots had gone round,

And square toes had hopped over.

There is no mystery about it at all.

I am simply applying to ordinary life a few of those precepts of observation and deduction which I advocated in that article.

Is there anything else that puzzles you?

'' ''The fingernails and the trichonopoly.

I suggested.

The writing on the wall was done with a man's forefinger dipped in blood.

My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly scratched in doing it,

Which would not have been the case if the man's nail had been trimmed.

I gather up some scattered ash from the floor.

It was dark in color and flaky.

Such an ash is only made by trichonopoly.

I have made a special study of cigar ashes.

In fact,

I have written a monograph upon the subject.

I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand,

Either of cigar or of tobacco.

It is just in such details that the skilled detective differs from the Grexen and Lestrade types.

'' ''And the florid face?

'' I asked.

''Ah,

That was more of a daring shot,

Though I have no doubt that I was right.

You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.

'' I passed my hand over my brow.

''My head is in a whirl,

'' I remarked.

''The more one thinks of it,

The more mysterious it grows.

How came these two men,

If there were two men,

Into an empty house?

What had become of the cabman who drove them?

How could one man compel another to take poison?

Where did the blood come from?

What was the object of the murderer,

Since robbery had no part in it?

How came the woman's ring there?

Above all,

Why should the second man write up the German word ''ratch'' before decamping?

I confess that I cannot see any possible way of reconciling all these facts.

'' My companion smiled approvingly.

''You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and well,

'' he said.

''There is much that is still obscure,

Though I have quite made up my mind on the main facts.

As to poor Lestrade's discovery,

It was simply a blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track,

By suggesting socialism and secret societies.

It was not done by a German.

The A,

If you noticed,

Was printed somewhat after the German fashion.

Now a real German invariably prints in the Latin character,

So that we may safely say that this was not written by one,

But by a clumsy imitator who overdid his part.

It was simply a ruse to divert inquiry into a wrong channel.

I am not going to tell you much more of the case,

Doctor.

You know a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick,

And if I show you too much of my method of working,

You will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.

'' ''I shall never do that,

'' I answered.

''You have brought detection as near an exact science as it will ever be brought in this world.

'' My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words.

And the earnest way in which I uttered them.

I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flowery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.

''I'll tell you one other thing,

'' he said.

''Patent leathers and square toes come in the same cab,

And they walked down the pathway together as friendly as possible,

Arm in arm in all probability.

When they got inside,

They walked up and down the room,

Or rather patent leathers stood still while square toes walked up and down.

I could read all that in the dust,

And I could read that as he walked he grew more and more excited.

That is shown by the increased length of his strides.

He was talking all the while and working himself up no doubt into a fury.

Then the tragedy occurred.

I've told you all I know myself now,

For the rest is mere surmise and conjecture.

We have a good working basis,

However,

On which to start.

We must hurry up,

For I want to go to Hale's concert to hear Norman Neruda this afternoon.

'' This conversation had occurred while our cab had been threading its way through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary byways.

In the dingiest and dreariest of them,

Our driver suddenly came to a stand.

''That's Audley Court in there,

'' he said,

Pointing to a narrow slit in the line of dead-colored brick.

''You'll find me here when you come back.

'' Audley Court was not an attractive locality.

The narrow passage led us into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid dwellings.

We picked our way among groups of dirty children and through lines of discolored linen until we came to No.

46,

The door of which was decorated with a small slip of brass,

On which the name Rance was engraved.

On inquiry,

We found that a constable was in bed,

And we were shown into a little front parlor to await his coming.

He appeared presently,

Looking a little irritable between his slumbers.

''I made my report at the office,

'' he said.

Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with it pensively.

''We thought that we should like to hear it all from your own lips,

'' he said.

''I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can,

'' the constable answered with his eyes upon the little golden disc.

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

'' Rance sat down on the horse-hair sofa and knitted his brows as though determined not to omit anything in his narrative.

''I'll tell it yea from the beginning,

'' he said.

''My time is from ten at night to six in the morning.

At eleven there was a fight at the White Hart,

But bar that all was quiet enough on the beat.

At one o'clock it began to rain,

And I met Harry Mercher,

Him who was the Holland Grove Beat,

And we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street,

A-talking.

Presently,

Maybe about two or a little after,

I thought I would take a look around and see that all was right down the Brixton Road.

It was precious dirty and lonely.

Not a soul did I meet all the way down,

Though a cab or two went past me.

I was strolling down,

Thinking between ourselves what handy a four of gin hot would be,

When suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of that same house.

Now I knew that them two houses in Lauriston Gardens was empty on account of him that owns them,

Who won't have the drains seen to,

Though the very last tenant that lived in one of them died of typhoid fever.

I was knocked all in a heap,

Therefore,

At seeing a light and I suspected as something was wrong.

When I got to the door,

You stopped and then walked back to the garden gate,

My companion interrupted.

What did you do that for?

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

Why,

That's true,

Sir,

He said,

Though how you come to know it heaven's only knows.

You see,

When I got up to the door it was so still and so lonesome that I'd be none the worse for someone with me.

I interfered of anything on this side of the grave,

But I thought that maybe it was him that died of typhoid inspecting the drains what killed him.

The thought gave me a kind of turn and I walked back to the gate to see if I could see Mercher's lantern,

But there wasn't no sign of him nor of anyone else.

There was no one in the street,

Not a living soul,

Not as much as a dog.

Then I pulled myself together and went back and pushed the door open.

All was quiet inside,

So I went into the room where the light was burning.

There was a candle flickering on the mantelpiece,

A red wax one,

And by its light I saw.

Yes,

I know all that you saw.

You walked around the room several times and you knelt down by the body and then you walked through and tried the kitchen door and then John Rance sprang to his feet with a frightened face and suspicion in his eyes.

Where was you hit to see all this?

He cried.

It seems to me that you know a deal more than you should.

Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the constable.

You are arresting me for murder,

He said.

I am one of the hounds and not the wolf.

Mr.

Gregson or Mr.

Lestrade will answer for that.

Go on,

Though.

What did you do next?

Rance resumed his seat without,

However,

Losing his mystified expression.

I went back to the gate and sounded my whistle.

That brought Mercher and two more to the spot.

What did you see then?

Well,

It was as far as anybody that could be of any good goes.

What do you mean?

The constable's feature broadened into a grin.

I've seen many a drunk chap in my time,

He said.

But never anyone so crying drunk as that cove.

He was at the gate when I came out leaning up again the railings and the singing at the pitch of his lungs about Columbine's newfangled banner or some such stuff.

He couldn't stand far less help.

What sort of a man was he?

Asked Sherlock Holmes.

John Rance appeared to be somewhat irritated at this digression.

He was an uncommon drunk sort of man,

He said.

He'd have found himself if the assault took up.

His face,

His dress.

Didn't you notice them?

Holmes broke in impatiently.

I should think I didn't notice them,

Seeing that I had to prop him up,

Me and Mercher between us.

He was a long chap with a red face,

The lower part muffled around.

That will do,

Cried Holmes.

What became of him?

We'd enough to do without looking after him,

The police said in an aggrieved voice.

I'll wager he found his way home,

All right.

How was he dressed?

A brown overcoat.

Had he a whip in his hand?

A whip?

No.

He must have left it behind,

Muttered my companion.

You didn't happen to see or hear a cab after that?

No.

There's a half-sovereign for you,

My companion says,

Standing up and taking his hat.

I am afraid,

Rance,

That you will never rise in the force.

That hat of yours should be for use as well as an ornament.

You might have gained your sergeant's stripes last night.

The man whom you held in your hands is the man who holds the clue of this mystery and whom we are seeking.

There is no use of arguing about it now.

I'll tell you that it is so.

Come along,

Doctor.

We started off for the cab together,

Leaving our informant incredulous but obviously uncomfortable.

The blundering fool,

Holmes said bitterly,

As we drove back to our lodgings.

Just to think of his having such an incomparable bit of good luck and not taking advantage of it.

I am rather in the dark still.

It is true that the description of this man tallies with your idea of the second party in this mystery.

But why should he come back to the house after leaving it?

That is not the way of criminals.

The ring,

Man,

The ring.

That was what he came back for.

If we have no other way of catching him,

We can always bait our line with the ring.

I shall have him,

Doctor.

I shall have him,

Doctor.

I'll lay you to one that I have him.

I must thank you for it all.

I might not have gone,

But for you.

And so have missed the finest study I have ever come across.

A study in Scarlet,

Eh?

Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon?

There's the Scarlet threat of murder running through the colorless skein of life.

And our duty is to unravel it.

To isolate it.

And expose every inch of it.

And now for lunch.

And then for Norman Neruda.

Her attack and her bowing are splendid.

What's that little thing of Chopin's she plays so magnificently?

Tra-la-la-la-la,

La-ra-lay.

Leaning back in the cab,

This amateur bloodhound caroled away like a lark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.

Chapter 5 Our Advertisement Brings the Visitor Our morning's exertions had been too much for my weak health,

And I was tired out in the afternoon.

After Holmes's departure for the concert,

I lay down upon the sofa and endeavored to get a couple of hours of sleep.

It was a useless attempt.

My mind had been too much excited by all that had occurred,

And the strangest fancies and surmises crowded into it.

Every time that I closed my eyes,

I saw before me the distorted baboon-like countenance of the murdered man.

So sinister was the impression which that face had protruded upon me that I found it difficult to feel anything but gratitude for him who had removed its owner from the world.

If ever human features bespoke vice of the most malignant type,

They were certainly those of Enoch J.

Drebber of Cleveland.

Still,

I recognized that justice must be done,

And that the depravity of the victim was no condonement in the eyes of the law.

The more I thought of it,

The more extraordinary did my companion's hypothesis that the man had been poisoned appear.

I remembered how he had sniffed his lips,

And had no doubt that he had detected something which had given rise to the idea.

Then again,

If not poison,

What had caused the man's death?

Since there was no wounds nor marks of strangulation.

But on the other hand,

Whose blood was that which lay so thickly upon the floor?

There were no signs of a struggle,

Nor had the victim any weapon with which he might have wounded an antagonist.

As long as all these questions were unsolved,

I felt that sleep would be no easy matter,

Either for Holmes,

Or myself.

His quiet,

Self-confident manner convinced me that he had already formed a theory which explained all the facts,

Though what it was I could not for an instant conjecture.

He was very late in returning,

So late that I knew that the concert could not have detained him all the time.

Dinner was on the table before he appeared.

It was magnificent,

He said,

As he took his seat.

Do you remember what Darwin says about music?

He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at.

Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it.

There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.

That's a rather broad idea,

I remarked.

One's ideas must be as broad as nature,

If they are to interpret nature,

He answered.

What's the matter?

You're not looking quite yourself.

This Brixton Road affair has upset you.

To tell the truth,

It has,

I said.

I ought to be more case-hardened after my Afghan experiences.

I saw my own comrades hack to pieces at Maywand without losing my nerve.

I can understand.

There is a mystery about this which stimulates the imagination.

Where there is no imagination,

There is no horror.

Have you seen the evening paper?

I have.

Have you seen the evening paper?

No.

It gives a fairly good account on the affair.

It does not mention the fact that when the man was raised up,

A woman's wedding ring fell upon the floor.

It is just as well it does not.

Why?

Look at this advertisement,

He answered.

I had one sent to every paper this morning immediately He threw the paper across to me and I glanced at the place indicated.

It was the first announcement in the found column.

In Brixton Road this morning,

It ran.

A plain gold wedding ring found in the roadway between the White Heart Tavern and Holland Grove.

Apply Dr.

Watson,

221B Baker Street,

Between 8 and 9 this evening.

Excuse my using your name,

He said.

If I used my own,

Some of these dunderheads would recognize it and want to meddle in the affair.

That is all right,

I answered.

But supposing anyone applies,

I have no ring.

Oh,

Yes,

You have,

Said he,

Handing me one.

This will do very well.

It is almost ophaxymile.

And who do you expect will answer this advertisement?

Why,

The man in the brown coat,

Our florid friend with the square toes.

If he does not come himself,

He will send an accomplice.

Would he not consider it as too dangerous?

Not at all.

If my view of the case is correct and I have every reason to believe that it is,

This man would rather risk anything than lose the ring.

According to my notion,

He dropped it on his father's body and did not miss it at the time.

After leaving the house,

He discovered his loss and hurried back,

But found the police already in possession,

Owing to his own folly in leaving the candle burning.

He had to pretend to be drunk in order to allay the suspicion which might have been aroused by his appearance at the gate.

Now put yourself in that man's place.

Our thinking the matter over,

It is possible that he had lost the ring in the road after leaving the house.

What would he do then?

He would eagerly look out for the evening papers in the hope of seeing it among the articles found.

His eye,

Of course,

Would light upon this.

He would be overjoyed.

Why should he fear a trap?

There would be no reason in his eyes why the finding of the ring should be connected with the murder.

You shall see him within an hour?

And then?

I asked.

Oh,

You can leave me to deal with him then.

Have you any arms?

I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.

You had better clean it and load it.

He will be a desperate man,

And though I shall take him unawares,

It is as well to be ready for anything.

I went to my bedroom and followed his advice.

Along with the pistol the table had been cleared,

And Holmes was engaged in his favorite occupation of scraping upon his violin.

The plot thickens,

He said as I entered.

I have just had an answer to my American telegram.

My view of the case is the correct one.

And that is,

I asked eagerly.

My fiddle would be the better for the new strings,

In a very ordinary way.

Leave the rest to me.

Don't frighten him by looking at him too hard.

It is eight o'clock now,

I said glancing at my watch.

Yes,

He will probably be here in a few minutes.

Open the door slightly.

That will do.

Now put the key on the inside.

Thank you.

This is a queer old book I picked up at a stall yesterday.

It is in Latin,

At Liège in the Lowlands,

In 1642.

Charles' head was still firm on his shoulders when this little brown-backed volume was struck off.

Who is the printer?

Philip de Croix.

Whoever he may have been,

On the flyleaf,

In a very faded ink,

Is written Ex Libris,

Guglielmi White.

A seventeenth-century lawyer,

I suppose.

His writing has a legal twist about it.

Here comes our man,

I think.

As he spoke,

There was a sharp ring at the bell.

Sherlock Holmes rose softly and moved his chair in the direction of the door.

We heard the servant pass along the hall and the sharp click of the latch as she opened it.

Does Mr.

Watson live here?

Asked a clear I did not hear the servant's reply,

But the door closed and someone began to ascend the stairs.

The footfall was an uncertain and shuffling one.

A look of surprise passed over the face of my companion as he listened to it.

It came slowly along the passage and there was a feeble tap at the door.

Come in,

I cried.

At my summons,

Instead of the man of violence a very old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment.

She appeared to be dazzled by a sudden blaze of light and after dropping a curtsy,

She stood blinking at us with her bleared eyes and fumbling in her pocket with nervous,

Shaky fingers.

I glanced at my companion and his face had assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was all I could do to keep my continence.

The old crone drew out an evening paper and pointed at our advertisement.

It's this as has brought me,

Good gentleman,

She said,

Dropping another curtsy.

A gold wedding ring in the Brixton Road.

It belongs to my girl Sally as was married only this time twelve month which her husband is steward about a union boat and what he'd say if he come home and found her without her ring is better than I can think.

He being short enough at best of times but more especially when he has the drink.

If it please you,

She went to the circus last night along with,

Is that her ring?

I asked.

The Lord be thanked,

Cried the old woman.

Sally will be a glad woman this night.

That's the ring.

And what may your address be?

Sweet.

Houndsditch.

A weary way from here.

The Brixton Road does not lie between any circus and Houndsditch,

Said Sherlock Holmes sharply.

The old woman faced round and looked keenly at him from her little red-rimmed eyes.

The gentleman asked me for my address,

She said.

Sally lives in lodgings at 3 Mayfield Place,

Peckham.

And your name is?

My name is Sawyer.

Hers is Dennis.

Which Tom Dennis married her.

And a smart,

Clean lad too,

As long as he's at sea.

And no steward in the company more thought of.

But when on shore,

What with the women and what with liquor shops.

Here is your ring,

Mrs.

Sawyer,

I interrupted in obedience to a sign from my companion.

This ring belongs to your daughter and I am glad to be able to restore it to the rightful owner.

With many mumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude,

The old crone packed it away in her pocket and shuffled off down the stairs.

Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet the moment that she was gone and rushed into his room.

He returned in a few seconds enveloped in an ulster and a cravat.

I'll follow her,

Carefully.

She must be an accomplice and will lead me to him.

Wait up for me.

The whole door had hardly slant behind our visitor before Holmes had descended the stair.

Looking through the window,

I could see her walking feebly along the other side while her pursuer dogged her some little distance behind.

Either his whole theory is incorrect,

I thought to myself,

Or the mystery.

There was no need for him to ask me to wait up for him for I felt that sleep was impossible until I heard the result of his adventure.

It was close upon nigh when he set out.

I had no idea how long he might be,

But I sat stolidly puffing at my pipe and skipping over the pages of Henry Merger's Vie de Boheme.

Eleven,

And the more stately tread of the landlady passed my door,

Bound for the same destination.

It was close upon twelve before I heard the sharp sound of his latch key.

The instant he entered,

I saw by his face that he had not been successful.

Amusement and chagrin seemed to be struggling for the mastery until the former suddenly carried the day to me.

I wouldn't have the Scotland yarders know it for the world,

He cried,

Dropping into his chair.

I have chaffed them so much that they would never have let me hear the end of it.

I can afford to laugh,

Because I know that I will be even with them in the long run.

What is it,

Then?

I asked.

Oh,

I don't mind telling a story against myself.

I had a foot sore.

Presently she came to a halt and hailed a four-wheeler which was passing.

I managed to be close to her so as to hear the address,

But I need not have been so anxious,

For she sang it out loud enough to be heard to the other side of the street.

Drive to 13 Duncan Street,

Houndsditch,

She cried.

This begins to look genuine,

I thought,

And having seen her safely inside,

I left myself behind.

That's an art which every detective should be an expert at.

Well,

Away we rattled and never drew rain until we reached the street in question.

I hopped off before we came to the door and strolled down the groping about frantically in the empty cab and giving vent to the finest assorted collection of odes that I have ever listened to.

There was no sign or trace of his passenger,

And I fear it will be some time before he gets his fare.

On inquiring at number 13,

We found that it belonged to a respectable paper-hanger named Keswick,

And that no one of the name either of Sawyer or Dennis had ever been heard of there.

You don't mean to say,

I cried in amazement,

That that tottering,

Feeble old woman was able to get out of the cab while it was in motion before the driver seeing her?

Old woman be damned,

Said Sherlock Holmes sharply.

We were the old woman to be so taken in.

It must have been a young man and an active one too,

Besides being an incomparable actor.

The get-up was inimitable.

He saw that he was followed,

No doubt,

And used this means of giving me the slip.

It shows that the man we are after is not what we imagined he was,

But has friends who are ready to risk something for him.

Now,

Doctor,

You are looking done up.

Take my advice and turn in.

I was certainly feeling very weary,

So I obeyed his injunction.

I left Holmes seated in front of the smoldering fire,

And long into the watches of the night I heard the low,

Melancholy wailings of his violin,

And knew that he was still pondering over the strange problem which he had set himself to unravel.

CHAPTER VI TOBIAS GREXEN SHOWS WHAT HE CAN DO The papers next day were full of the Brixton mystery,

As they termed it.

Each had a long account of the affair,

And some had leaders upon it in addition.

There was some information in them which was new to me.

I still retain in my scrapbook numerous clippings and extracts bearing upon the case.

Here is a condensation of a few of them.

The Daily Telegraph remarked that in the history of crime there had seldom been a tragedy which presented stranger features.

The German name of the victim,

The absence of all other motive,

And the sinister inscription on the wall,

All pointed to its perpetration by political refugees and revolutionists.

The socialists had many branches in America,

And the deceased had,

No doubt,

Infringed their unwritten laws and been tracked down by them.

After alluding eerily to the Wemgricht,

Aquatofana,

Carbonari,

The Marchioness,

The Brinvilliers,

The Darwinian theory,

The principles of Malthus,

And highway murders,

The article concluded by admonishing the government and advocating a closer watch over foreigners in England.

The Standard commented upon the fact that lawless outrages of the sort usually occurred under a liberal administration.

They arose from the unsettling of the minds of the masses and the consequent weakening of all authority.

The deceased was an American gentleman residing for some weeks in the metropolis.

He had stayed at the boarding house of Madame Charpentier and Torquay Terrace,

Camberwell.

He was accompanied in his travels by his private secretary,

Mr.

Joseph Stangerson.

The two bade adieu to their landlady upon Tuesday the 4th and departed to Euston Station with the avowed intention of catching the Liverpool Express.

They were afterwards to gather upon the platform.

Nothing more is known of them until Mr.

Drebber's body was,

As recorded,

Discovered in an empty house in the Brixton Road,

Many miles from Euston.

How he came there or how he met his fate are questions which are still involved in mystery.

Nothing is known of the whereabouts of Stangerson.

We are glad to learn that Mr.

Lestrade is both engaged upon the case and it is confidently anticipated that these well-known officers will speedily throw light upon the matter.

The Daily News observed that there was no doubt as to the crime being a political one.

The despotism and hatred of liberalism,

Which animated the continental governments,

Had had the effect of driving to our shores a number of men who might have made a reflection of all that they had undergone.

Among these men there was a stringent code of honour,

An infringement of which was punished by death.

Every effort should be made to find the secretary,

Stangerson,

And to ascertain some particulars of the habit of the deceased.

A great step had been gained by the discovery of the address of the house at which he had boarded,

The property of Mr.

Gregson of Scotland Yard.

Sherlock Holmes and I read these notices over together at breakfast,

And they appeared to afford him considerable amusement.

I told you that,

Whatever happened,

Lestrade and Gregson would be sure to score.

That depends on how it turns out.

Oh,

Bless you,

It doesn't matter in the least.

If the man is caught,

It will be in spite of their extortions.

It's heads I win and tails you lose.

Whatever they do,

They will have followers.

What on earth is this?

I cried,

For at this moment there came the pattering of many steps in the hall and on the stairs,

Accompanied by audible expressions of disgust upon the part of our landlady.

And as he spoke,

There rushed into the room a half-dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs that have ever clapped eyes on.

Tension,

Cried Holmes,

In a sharp tone,

And the six dirty little scoundrels stood in a line like so many disreputable statuettes.

In future you shall send up Wiggins alone to report,

And the rest of you must wait in the street.

Sir,

We ain't,

Said one of the youths.

I hardly expected you would.

You must keep on until you do.

Here are your wages.

He handed each of them a shilling.

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

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

There's more work to be Garato,

One of those little beggars,

Than out of a dozen of the force,

Holmes remarked.

The mere sight of an official-looking person seals man's lips.

These youngsters,

However,

Go everywhere and hear everything.

They are as sharp as needles,

Too.

All they want is organization.

Is it on this Brixton case that you are employing them?

I asked.

Yes,

There is a point which I wish to ascertain.

It is merely a matter of time.

Hello.

We are going to hear some news now with a vengeance.

Here is Gregson coming down the road with a beatitude written upon every feature of his face.

Bound for us,

I know.

Yes,

He is stopping.

There he is.

There was a violent peel at the bell and in a few seconds the fair-haired detective came up the stairs,

Three steps at a time,

And burst into our sitting-room.

My dear fellow,

He cried,

Wringing Holmes' unresponsive hand,

Congratulate me.

I have made the whole thing as clear as day.

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

Do you mean that you are on the right track?

He asked.

Why,

Sir,

We have the man under lock and key.

And his name is?

Arthur Charpentier,

Sub-lieutenant in His Majesty's Navy,

Cried Gregson,

Pompously rubbing his fat hands and inflating his chest.

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

Take a seat and try one of these cigars,

He said.

We are anxious to know how you managed it.

Will you have some whiskey and water?

I don't mind if I do,

The detective answered.

The tremendous exertions which I have gone through during the last day or two have worn me out.

Not so much bodily exertion,

You understand,

As the strain upon the mind.

You will appreciate that,

Mr.

Sherlock Holmes,

For we are both brain-workers.

Mr.

Holmes,

Gravely,

Let us hear how you arrived at this most gratifying result.

The detective seated himself in the armchair and puffed complacently at his cigar.

Then,

Suddenly,

He slapped his thigh in a paroxysm of amusement.

The fun of it is,

He cried,

That that fool Lestrade,

Who thinks himself so smart,

Has gone off the wrong track and found himself with Dr.

Watson,

Who had no more to do with the crime than the babe unborn.

I have no doubt that he has caught him by this time.

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

And how did you get your clue?

Ah,

I'll tell you all about it.

Of course,

Dr.

Watson,

This is strictly between ourselves.

The first difficulty which we had to contend with was the finding that people would have waited until their advertisements were answered or until parties came forward and volunteered information.

That is not Tobias Gregson's way of going to work.

You remember the hat beside the dead man?

Yes,

Said Holmes,

By John Underwood and Sons,

129 Camberwell Road.

Gregson looked quite crestfallen.

I had no idea that you noticed that,

He said.

Have you been there?

No.

Ha,

Cried Gregson in a relieved voice.

You should never neglect a chance,

However small it may seem.

To a great mind,

Nothing is little,

Remarked Holmes sententiously.

Well,

I went to Underwood and asked him if he had sold a hat of that size in description.

He looked over his books and came on it at once.

It had been there forever,

Residing at Charpentier's boarding establishment,

Torquay Terrace.

Thus I got his address.

Smart,

Very smart,

Murmured Sherlock Holmes.

I next called upon Madame Charpentier,

Continued the detective.

I found her very pale and distressed.

Her daughter was in the room,

Too.

An uncommonly fine girl she is,

Too.

She was looking red about the eyes as I spoke to her.

That didn't escape my notice.

I began to smell a rat.

You know the feeling,

Mr.

Sherlock Holmes,

When you come upon the right scent,

The kind of thrill in your nerves.

Have you heard of the mysterious death of your late boarder,

Mr.

Enoch J.

Drebber,

Of Cleveland,

I asked.

The mother nodded.

She didn't seem to be able to get out a word.

The daughter burst into tears.

She still knew something of the matter.

At what o'clock did Mr.

Drebber leave your house for the train,

I asked.

At eight o'clock,

She said,

Gulping in her throat to keep down her agitation.

His secretary,

Mr.

Stengersen,

Said that there were two trains,

One at 9.

15 and one at 11.

He was to catch the first.

And was that the last which you saw of him?

A terrible change came on the gentleman's face as I asked the question.

Her features turned perfectly livid.

It was some seconds before she could get out a single word.

Yes.

And when it did come,

It was in a husky,

Unnatural tone.

There was silence for a moment,

And then the daughter spoke in a calm,

Clear voice.

No good can ever come of falsehood,

Mother,

She said.

Let us be frank with this gentleman.

We did see Mr.

Drebber again.

God forgive you,

Cried Madame Charpentier,

Throwing up her arms and sinking back in her chair.

You have murdered your brother.

Arthur would rather that we spoke the truth,

The girl answered firmly.

You had best tell me all about it now,

I said.

Half-confidences are worse than none.

Besides,

You do not know how much we know of it.

On your head be it,

Alice,

Cried her mother.

And then,

Turning to me,

I will tell you all,

Sir.

Do not imagine that my agitation on behalf of my son arises from any fear,

Lest he should have had a hand in this terrible affair.

He is utterly innocent of it.

My dread is,

However,

That in your eyes and in the eyes of others he has been victimized.

That,

However,

Is surely impossible.

His high character,

His profession,

His antecedents were all forbidden.

Your best way is to make a clean breast of the facts,

I answered.

Depend upon it.

If your son is innocent,

He will be none the worse.

Perhaps,

Alice,

You had better leave us together,

She said,

I had no intention of telling you all this.

But since my poor daughter has disclosed it,

I have no alternative.

Having once decided to speak,

I will tell you all without omitting any particular.

It is your wisest choice,

Said I.

Mr.

Drebber had been with us nearly three weeks.

He and his secretary,

Mr.

Standerson,

Had been traveling on the continent.

Each of their trunks showing that had been their last stopping place.

Standerson was a quite reserved man.

But his employer,

I am sorry to say,

Was far otherwise.

He was coarse in his habits and brutish in his ways.

The very night of his arrival he became very much the worst for drink.

And indeed,

After twelve o'clock in the day he could hardly ever be said that his maid servants were disgustingly free and familiar.

Worst of all,

He speedily assumed the same attitude towards my daughter,

Alice,

And spoke to her more than once in a way which,

Fortunately,

She is too innocent to understand.

On one occasion he actually seized her in his arms and embraced her,

An outrage which caused his own secretary to understand all this,

I asked.

I suppose that you can get rid of your borders when you wish.

Mrs.

Charpentier brushed at my pertinent question.

Would to God that I had given him notice on the very day that he came,

She said.

But it was a sore temptation.

They were paying a pound a day each,

Fourteen pounds a week,

And this is the slack season.

I am a widow and my boy in the navy I grudged to lose the money.

I acted for the best.

This last was too much,

However,

And I gave him notice to leave an account of it.

This was the reason of his going.

Well?

My heart grew light when I saw him drive away.

My son is on leave just now,

But I did not tell him anything of all this,

For his temper is violent and he is passionately fond of his sister.

I did not want to be lifted from my mind.

Alas!

In less than an hour there was a ring at the bell and I learned that Mr.

Drebber had returned.

He was then turned to Alice and before my very face proposed to her that she should fly with him.

You are of age,

He said,

And there is no law to stop you.

I have money enough and to spare.

You shall marry me now straight away.

You shall live like a princess.

Poor Alice was so frightened that she shrunk away from him,

But he caught her by the wrist and endeavored to draw her towards the door.

I screamed and at that moment my son Arthur came into the room.

What happened then I do not know.

I heard oaths and the confused sounds of a scuffle.

When I did look up I saw Arthur standing in the doorway laughing with a stick in his hand.

I don't think that fine fellow will trouble us again,

He said.

I will just go after him and see what he does with himself.

With those words he took his hat and started down the street.

The next morning we heard of Mr.

Drebber's mysterious death.

This statement came from Mrs.

Charpentier's lips with many gasps and pauses.

She spoke so low that I could hardly catch the words.

I made shorthand notes of all that she said.

However,

So that there should be no possibility of a mistake.

It's quite exciting,

Said Sherlock Holmes with a yawn.

What happened next?

When Mrs.

Charpentier paused the detective continued.

I saw that the whole case hung upon one point,

Fixing her with my eye I asked her at what hour her son returned.

I do not know,

She answered.

Not know?

No,

He has a latchkey and he let himself in.

After you went to bed?

Yes.

When did you go to bed?

About eleven.

So your son was gone at least two hours?

Yes.

Possibly four or five?

What was he doing during that time?

I do not know,

She answered,

Turning white to her very lips.

Of course,

After that there was nothing more to be done.

I found out where Lieutenant Charpentier was,

Took two officers with me and arrested him.

When I touched him on the shoulder and warned him to come quietly with us,

He answered us as bold as brass.

I suppose you are arresting me for being concerned in the death of that scoundrel Drebber,

He said.

We had said nothing to him about it,

So that his alluding to it had a most suspicious aspect.

Very,

Said Holmes.

He still carried the heavy stick which the mother described him as having with him when he followed Drebber.

It was a stout oak cudgel.

What is your theory then?

Well,

My theory is that Drebber was as far as the Brixton Road.

When there,

A fresh altercation arose between them,

In the course of which Drebber received a blow from the stick in the pit of the stomach,

Perhaps which killed him without leaving any mark.

The night was so wet that no one was about,

So Charpentier dragged the body of his victim into the empty house.

As to the candle and the blood and the writing on the wall there were so many tricks to throw the police on the wrong scent.

Well done,

Said Holmes in an encouraging voice.

Really,

Gregson,

You are getting along.

We shall make something of you yet.

I flatter myself that I have managed it rather neatly,

The detective answered proudly.

The young man volunteered a statement in which he said that after following Drebber some time,

The latter perceived him and took a cab On his way home he met an old shipmate and took a long walk with him.

On being asked where this old shipmate lived,

He was unable to give us any satisfactory reply.

I think the whole case fits together uncommonly well.

What amuses me is to think of Lestrade,

Who had started off upon the wrong scent.

I am afraid he won't make much of it.

Why,

By Jove,

He is the very man himself.

It was indeed Lestrade who had ascended the stairs while we were talking and who now entered the room.

The assurance and jauntiness which generally marked his demeanor and dress were,

However,

Wanting.

His face was disturbed and troubled while his clothes were disarranged and untidy.

He had evidently come with the intention of consulting with Sherlock Holmes for on perceiving his colleague he appeared to be embarrassed and put out.

He stood in the center of the room fumbling nervously with his hat and uncertain what to do.

This is a most extraordinary case,

He said at last,

A most incomprehensible affair.

Ah,

You find it so,

Mr.

Lestrade,

Cried Gregson triumphantly.

I thought you would have come to that conclusion.

Have you managed to find Mr.

Joseph Stengersen?

The secretary,

Mr.

Joseph Stengersen,

Said Lestrade gravely,

Was murdered at Halliday's private hotel about six o'clock this morning.

Chapter 7 Light in the Darkness The intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so momentous and unexpected that we were all three fairly dumbfounded.

Gregson sprang out from his chair and upset the remainder of his whiskey and water.

I stared in silence at Sherlock Holmes whose lips were compressed and his brows drawn down over his eyes.

Stengersen,

Too,

He muttered.

The plot thickens.

It was quite thick enough before,

Grumbled Lestrade,

Taking a chair.

I seem to have dropped into a sort of a council of war.

Are you.

.

.

Are you sure of this piece of intelligence?

Stammered Gregson.

I have just come from his room,

Said Lestrade.

I was the first to discover what had occurred.

We've been hearing Gregson's view of the matter,

Holmes observed.

Would you mind letting us know what you have done?

I have no objection,

Lestrade answered,

Seating himself.

I freely confess that I was of the opinion that Stengersen was concerned in the death of Drebber.

This fresh development has shown me that I was completely mistaken.

Full of the A1 idea,

I set myself to find out what had become of the secretary.

They had been seen together at eight on the evening of the third.

At two in the morning,

Drebber had been found in the Brixton Road.

The question which confronted me was to find out how Stengersen had been employed between 8.

30 and the time of the crime and what had become of him afterwards.

I telegraphed to Liverpool,

Giving a description of the man and warning them to keep a watch upon the American boats.

Calling upon all the hotels and lodging houses in the vicinity of Euston.

You see,

I argue that if Drebber and his companion had been separated,

The natural course for the latter would be to put up somewhere in the vicinity for the night and then to hang about the station again next morning.

They would be likely to agree on some meeting place beforehand,

Remarked Holmes.

I made inquiries entirely without avail.

This morning I began very early and at eight o'clock I reached Halliday's private hotel in Little George Street.

On my inquiry as to whether a Mr.

Stengersen was living there,

They at once answered me in the affirmative.

No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,

They said.

He has been waiting and asked.

He is upstairs in bed and wished to be called at nine.

I will go up and see him at once,

I said.

It seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his nerves and lead him to say something unguarded.

The boots volunteered to show me the room.

It was on the second floor and there was a small corridor leading up to it.

I woke up again when I saw something that made me feel sickish in spite of my twenty years' experience.

From under the door there curled a little red ribbon of blood,

Which had mandered across the passage and formed a little pool along the skirting at the other side.

I gave a cry which brought the boots back.

He nearly fainted when he saw it.

He knocked it in.

The window of the room was open and beside the window all huddled up lay the body of a man in his nightdress.

He was quite dead and had been for some time,

For his limbs were rigid and cold.

When we turned him over the boots recognized him at once as being the same gentleman who had engaged the room under the name of Joseph Stangerson.

The cause of death was on the left side which must have penetrated the heart.

And now comes the strangest part of the affair.

What do you suppose was above the murdered man?

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

The word RAGE written in letters of blood,

He said.

Said Lestrade in an awestruck voice and we were all silent for a while.

There was something so methodical and so incomprehensible about the deeds of this unknown assassin that it imparted a fresh ghastliness to his crimes.

My nerves which were steady enough on the field of battle tingled as I thought of it.

The man was seen by Martino de Lestrade.

A milk boy passing on his way to the dairy happened to walk down the lane which leads from the muse at the back of the hotel.

He noticed that a ladder which usually lay there was raised against one of the windows of the second floor which was wide open.

After passing he looked back and saw a man descend the ladder.

He came down so quietly and openly that he could not join her at work in the hotel.

He took no particular notice of him beyond thinking in his mind that it was early for him to be at work.

He has an impression that the man was tall,

Had a reddish face and was dressed in a long brownish coat.

He must have stayed in the room some little time after the murder for we found blood-stained water in the basin where he had washed his hands when he was alive.

I glanced at Holmes on hearing the description of the murderer which tallied so exactly with his own.

There was,

However,

No trace of exaltation or satisfaction upon his face.

Did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue to the murderer?

He asked.

Nothing.

Standerson had rubber spurs in his pocket but it seems that this was usual as he did all the paying.

There was eighty-odd pounds in it but nothing had been taken.

Whatever the motives of these extraordinary crimes robbery is certainly not one of them.

There were no papers or memoranda in the murdered man's pocket except a single telegram dated from Cleveland about a month ago and containing the words J.

H.

Is in Europe.

And this message.

And there was nothing else?

Holmes asked.

Nothing of any importance.

The man's novel with which he had read himself to sleep was lying upon the bed and his pipe was in a chair beside him.

There was a glass of water on the table and on the windowsill a small chip ointment box containing a couple of pills.

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

He cried exultantly.

My case is complete.

The two detectives stared at him in amazement.

I have now in my hands my companion said confidently all the threads which have formed such a tangle.

There are of course details to be filled in but I am as certain of all the main facts from the time that Drebber and Anderson at the station up to the discovery of the body of the latter as if I had seen them with my own eyes.

I will give you a proof of my knowledge.

Could you lay your hand upon those pills?

I have them said Lestrade producing a small white box.

I took them in the purse and the telegram intending to have them put in a place of safety at the police station.

For I am bound to say that I do not attach any importance to them.

Give them here said Holmes.

Now doctor turning to me are those ordinary pills?

They certainly were not.

They were of a pearly gray color small round and almost transparent against the light.

From their lightness and transparency I remarked.

Precisely so answered Holmes.

Now would you mind going down and fetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has been bad so long and which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain yesterday?

I went downstairs and carried the dog upstairs in my arms.

Its labored breathing and glazing eyes showed that it was not far to claim that it had already exceeded the usual term of canine existence.

I placed it upon a cushion on the rug.

I will now cut one of those pills in two said Holmes and drawing his penknife he suited the action to the word.

One half will return into the box for future purpose.

The other half I will place in this wineglass in which is a teaspoon full of water.

I hope,

My friend,

The doctor is right and that it readily dissolves.

This may be very interesting said Lestrade in the injured tone of one who suspects that he is being laughed at.

I cannot see,

However,

What it has to do with the death of Mr.

Joseph Stangerson.

Patience,

My friend,

Patience.

You will find in time that it has everything and on presenting it to the dog we find that he laps it up readily enough.

As he spoke he turned the contents of the wineglass into a saucer and placed it in front of the terrier who speedily licked it dry.

Sherlock Holmes' earnest demeanor had so far convinced us that we all sat in silence watching the animal intently and expecting some startling effect.

None such appeared,

However.

The dog continued to lie stretched upon the cushion breathing in in a labored way but apparently neither the better nor the worse were its draught.

Holmes had taken out his watch and as minute followed minute without result an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment appeared upon his features.

He gnawed his lip drummed his fingers upon the table and showed every other symptom of acute impatience.

So great was his emotion that I felt sincerely sorry for him while the two detectives smiled derisively by no means displeased at this check which he had met.

It can't be a coincidence he cried at last springing from his chair and pacing wildly up and down the room.

It is impossible that it should be a mere coincidence.

The very pills which I suspect in the case of Drever are actually found after the death of Stengersen and yet they are inert.

What can it mean?

Surely my whole chain of reasoning cannot have been false.

It is impossible and yet this wretched dog is none the worse.

Ah,

I have it.

I have it.

With a perfect shriek of delight he dissolved it added milk and presented it to the terrier.

The unfortunate creature's tongue seemed hardly to have been moistened in it before it gave a convulsive shiver in every limb and lay as rigid and lifeless as if it had been struck by lightning.

Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

I should have more faith he said.

I ought to know by the time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.

Of the two pills in that box one was the most deadly poison and the other was entirely harmless.

I ought to have known that before ever I saw the box at all.

This last statement appeared to me to be so startling that I could hardly believe my eyes.

There was the dead dog however to prove that his conjecture had been correct.

It seemed to me that the mists in my own mind were gradually clearing away and I began to have a dim vague perception of the truth.

All this seems strange to you continued Holmes because you failed at the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the single real clue that seemed to seize upon that and everything that has occurred since then has served to confer my original supposition and indeed was a logical sequence of it.

Hence things which have perplexed you and made the case more obscure have served to enlighten me and to strengthen my conclusions.

It was a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery.

The most commonplace crime because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn.

This murder would have been infinitely more difficult to unravel had the body of the victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any of those and sensational accompaniments which have rendered it remarkable.

These strange details far from making the case more difficult have really had the effect of making it less so.

Mr.

Gregson,

Who had listened to this address with considerable impatience could contain himself no longer.

Look here,

Mr.

Sherlock Holmes,

He said,

We are all ready to acknowledge that you are a smart man and that you have your own methods of working.

We want something more than mere theory and preaching now,

Though.

It is a case of taking the man.

I have made my case out and it seems I was wrong.

Young Charpentier could not have been engaged in this second affair.

Lestrade went after this man,

Stangerson,

And it appears that he was wrong too.

You have thrown out hints here and hints there and seem to know more than we do.

But the time had come when we feel that we have the right to ask you straight how much do you know of the business?

Can you name the man who did it?

I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right,

Sir,

Remarked Lestrade.

We have both tried and we have both failed.

You have remarked more than once since I have been in this room that you had all the evidence which you require.

Surely you will not withhold it any longer.

Any delay in arresting the assassin,

I observed,

Might give him time to perpetrate some fresh atrocity.

Thus,

Pressed by us all,

Holmes showed signs of irresolution.

He continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his chest and his brows drawn down,

As was his habit when lost in thought.

There will be no more murders,

He said at last,

Stopping abruptly and facing us.

He can put that consideration out of the question.

You have asked me if I know the name of the assassin.

I do.

The mere knowing of his name is a small thing,

However,

Compared with the power of laying our hands upon him.

This I expect very shortly to do.

I have good hopes of managing it through my own arrangements,

But it is a thing which needs delicate handling,

For we have a shrewd and desperate man to deal with,

And another who is as clever as himself.

As long as this man has no idea that anyone can have a clue,

There is some chance of securing him,

But if he had the slightest suspicion,

He would change his name and vanish in an instant among the four million inhabitants of this great city.

Without meaning to hurt either of your feelings,

I am bound to say the opposite,

Of course,

And that is why I have not asked for your assistance.

If I fail,

I shall,

Of course,

Incur all the blame due to this omission,

But that I am prepared for.

At present,

I am ready to promise that the instant that I can communicate with you without endangering my own combinations,

I am ready to do everything I can to help you.

I am ready to do everything I can to help you.

I am ready to do everything I can to help you.

I have the cab downstairs.

Good boy,

Said Holmes blandly.

Why don't you introduce this pattern at Scotland Yard,

He continued,

Taking a pair of steel handcuffs from a drawer.

See how beautifully the spring works.

They fasten in an instant.

The old pattern is good enough,

Remarked Lestrade,

If we can only find the man to put them on.

Very good,

Said Wiggins,

The cabman may as well help me with my boxes,

Just ask him to step up,

Wiggins.

I was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he were about to set out on a journey,

Since he had not said anything to me about it.

There was a small portmanteau in the room,

In this he pulled out and began to strap.

He was busily engaged at it when the cabman entered the room.

He said,

Kneeling over his task and never turning his head.

The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen,

Defiant air and put down his hands to assist.

At that instant,

There was a sharp click,

The jangling of metal,

And Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet again.

Gentlemen,

He cried with flashing eyes,

Let me introduce to you the hero of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph Stangerson.

The whole thing occurred in a moment,

So quickly that I had no time to realize it.

I have a vivid recollection of that instant,

Of Holmes' triumphant expression in the ring of his voice,

Of the cabman's dazed,

Savage face as he glared at the glittering handcuffs which had appeared as if by magic upon his wrists.

Then,

With an inarticulate roar of fury,

The prisoner wrenched himself free from Holmes' grasp and hurled himself through the door.

Woodwork and glass gave way before him,

But before he got quite through,

Grexen,

Lestrade and Holmes sprang upon him like so many staghounds.

He was dragged back into the room and then commenced a terrific conflict.

So powerful and so fierce was he that the four of us were shaken off again and again.

He appeared to have the convulsive strength of a man in an epileptic fit.

His face and hands were terribly mangled by his passage through the glass,

But loss of blood had no effect in diminishing his resistance.

It was not until Lestrade succeeded in getting his hand that we made him realize that his struggles were of no avail,

And even then we felt no security until we had pinioned his feet as well as his hands.

That done,

We rose to our feet breathless and panting.

We have his cab,

Said Sherlock Holmes.

It will serve to take him to Scotland Yard.

And now,

Gentlemen,

He continued with a pleasant smile,

You are very welcome to put any questions that you like to me now,

And there is no danger that I will refuse to answer them.

In the central portion of the great North American continent there lies an arid and repulsive desert,

Which for many a long year served as a barrier from the Sierra Nevada to Nebraska and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado upon the south is a region of desolation and silence.

Nor is nature always in one mood throughout this grim district.

It comprises snow-capped and lofty mountains and dark and gloomy valleys.

There are swift-flowing rivers which dash through jagged canyons,

And there are enormous plains which in winter and in summer are grey with a saline-alkali dust.

They all preserve,

However,

The common characteristics of barrenness,

Inhospitability and misery.

There are no inhabitants of this land of despair.

A band of Pawnees or of Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other hunting grounds,

But the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose sight once more upon their prairies.

The coyote sculls among the scrub and buzzard flaps heavily throughout the air,

And the clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through the dark ravines and picks up such sustenance as it can amongst the rocks.

These are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.

In the whole world there can be no more dreary view than that from the northern slope of the Sierra Blanco.

Everything the eye can reach stretches the great,

Flat plain land,

All dusted over with patches of alkali and intersected by clumps of the dwarfish shrapnel bushes.

On the extreme verge of the horizon lie a long chain of mountain peaks with a rugged summit flecked with snow.

In this great stretch of country there is no sign of life nor of anything appertaining to life.

There is no bird no movement upon the dull,

Gray earth.

Above all,

There is absolute silence.

Listen as one may.

There is no shadow of a sound in all that mighty wilderness.

Nothing but silence.

Complete and heart-subduing silence.

It has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon the broad plain.

Looking down from the Sierra Blanco one sees a pathway traced out across the desert which winds away and is lost in the extreme distance.

It is rutted with wheels and trodden down by the feet of many adventurers.

Here and there there are scattered white objects which glisten in the sun and stand out against a dull deposit of alkali.

Approach and examine them.

They are bones,

Others smaller and more delicate.

The former have belonged to oxen and the latter to men.

For fifteen hundred miles one may trace this ghastly caravan route by these scattered remains of those who had fallen by the wayside.

Looking down on this very scene there stood upon the fourth of May eighteen hundred and forty-seven a solitary traveler.

His appearance was such that he might have been the very genius or demon of the region.

An observer would have found it difficult to say whether he was nearer to forty or to sixty.

His face was lean and haggard and the brown parchment-like skin was drawn tightly over the projecting bones.

His long brown hair and beard were all flecked and dashed with white.

His eyes were sunken in his head and burned with an unnatural luster.

While the hand which grasped his rifle was hardly more fleshy than that of a skeleton.

As he stood he leaned upon his weapon for support and yet his tall figure and the massive framework of his bones suggested a wiry and vigorous constitution.

His gaunt face,

However,

And his clothes which hung so baggedly over his shriveled limbs proclaimed what it was to him that senile and decrepit appearance.

The man was dying.

Dying from hunger and from thirst.

He had toiled painfully down the ravine and on to this little elevation in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water.

Now the great salt plain stretched before his eyes and the distant belt of savage mountains without a sign anywhere of plant or tree or presence of moisture.

In all that broad landscape there was no gleam of hope.

North and east and west he looked with wild questioning eyes and then he realized that his wandering had come to an end and that there on that barren crag he was about to die.

Why not here as well as in a feather bed twenty years hence?

He muttered and seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.

Before sitting down he had deposited upon the ground his useless rifle and also a large bundle tied up in a grey shawl which he had carried slung over his right shoulder.

It appeared to be somewhat too heavy for his strength for in lowering it it came down on the ground with some little violence.

Instantly he heard a gentle moaning cry and from it there protruded a small scared face with very bright brown eyes and two little speckled dimpled fists.

You've hurt me said a childish voice reproachfully.

Have I though the man answered penitently.

I didn't go forth to do it.

As he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and found a little girl of about five years of age whose dainty shoes and smart pink frock with its little linen apron all bespoke a mother's care.

The child was pale and wan but her healthy arms and legs showed that she had suffered less than her companion.

How is it now he answered anxiously for she was still rubbing the townsy golden curls which covered the back of her head.

She said with perfect gravity showing the injured part up to him.

That's what mother used to do.

Where's mother.

Mother's gone.

I guess you'll see her before long.

Gone eh said the little girl.

Funny she didn't say goodbye.

She most always did if she was just going over to aunties for tea for three days.

Say it's awful dry ain't it.

Ain't there no water nor nothing to eat.

No there ain't nothing dearie.

You'll just need to be patient a while then you'll be all right.

Put your head up again me like that and then you'll feel bullier.

It ain't easy to talk when your lips is like leather but I guess I'd best let you know how the cards lie.

What's that you've got.

Pretty things fine things cried the little girl enthusiastically holding up two glittering fragments of mica.

When we goes back to home I'll give them to my brother Bob.

You'll see prettier things than them soon said the man confidently.

You just wait a bit.

I was going to tell you though you remember when we left the river.

Oh yes well we reckon we'd strike another river soon.

Do you see that there was something wrong compasses or map or something and it didn't turn up water ran out just accept a little drop for the likes of you and and you couldn't wash yourself interrupted his companion gravely steering up at his grimy visage no nor drink and Mr.

Bender he was the first to go and then Indian Pete and then Mrs.

McGregor and then Johnny Hones and then dearie your mother then mother's a deader too cried the little girl dropping her face in her pinafore and sobbing bitterly yes they all went except you and me then I thought that it was some chance of water in this direction so I heaved you over my shoulder and we tramped together we don't seem as though we've improved matters there's an almighty small chance for us now do you mean that we are going to die too asked the child checking her sobs and raising her tear-stained face I guess that's about the size of it why didn't you say so before she said laughing gleefully it gave me such a fright why of course now as long as we die we'll be with mother again yes you will dearie and you too I'll tell her how awful good you've been I'll bet she meets us at the door of heaven with a big pitcher of water and a lot of buckwheat cakes hot and toasted on both sides like Bob and me was fond of how long will it be first I don't know not very long the man's eyes were fixated upon the northern horizon in the blue vault of heaven there had appeared three little specks which increased in size every moment so rapidly did they approach they speedily resolved themselves into three large brown birds which circled over the heads of the two wanderers and then settled upon some rocks which overlooked them they were buzzards the vultures of the west whose coming is a forerunner of death cocks and hens cried the little girl gleefully pointing at their ill-omened forms and clapping her hands to make them rise say what made this country of course he did said her companion rather startled by this unexpected question he made the country down in Illinois and he made the Missouri the little girl continued I guess somebody else made the country in these parts it's not nearly so well done they forgot the water and the trees what would you think of offering up a prayer the man asked diffidently it ain't night yet she answered it don't matter it ain't quite regular but he won't mind that you bet you say over them ones that you used to say every night in the wagon when we was on the plains why don't you say some yourself the child asked with wondering eyes I disremembered them he answered I ain't said none since I was half the eight on that gun I guess it's never too late you say them out and I'll stand by and come in on the courses then you'll need to kneel down and me too she said laying the shawl out for that purpose you've got to put your hands up like this it makes you feel kinda good it was a strange sight had there been anything like this but the buzzers to see it side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the two wanderers the little prattling child and the reckless hardened adventure her chubby face and his haggard angular visage were both turned up to the cloudless heaven in heartfelt entreaty to that dread being with whom they were face to face while the child fell asleep nestling upon the broad breast of the protector he watched over her slumber for some time but nature proved to be too strong for him for three days and three nights he had allowed himself neither rest nor repose slowly the eyelids drooped over the tired eyes and the head sunk lower and lower upon the breast until the man's grizzled beard was mixed with the gold tresses of his companion had the wanderer remained awake for another half hour a strange sight to have met his eyes far away on the extreme verge of the alkali plain there rose up a little spray of dust very slight at first and hardly to be distinguished from the mists of the distance but gradually growing higher and broader until it formed a solid well-defined cloud this cloud continued to increase in size until it became evident that it could only be raised by a great multitude of moving creatures in more fertile spots the observer would have come to the conclusion that one of those great herds of bisons which graze upon the prairie land was approaching him this was obviously impossible in these arid wilds as the whirl of dust drew nearer to the solitary bluff where the castaways were reposing the canvas covered tilts of wagons and the figures of armed horsemen began to show up through the haze and the apparition revealed itself as being a great caravan upon its journey for the west but what a caravan when the head of it had reached the base of the mountains the rear was not yet visible on the horizon right across the enormous plain stretched the straggling array of wagons and carts men on horseback and men on foot innumerable women who staggered along on their burdens and children who toddled beside the wagons or peeped out from under the white coverings this was evidently no ordinary party of immigrants but rather some nomad people who had been compelled from stress of circumstances staggering and rumbling from this great mass of humanity with the creaking of wheels and the neighing of horses loud as it was it was not sufficient to rouse the two tired wayfarers above them at the head of the column there rode a score or more of grave iron-faced men clad in somber homespun garments and armed with rifles on reaching the base of the bluff they halted and began to counsel among themselves the wells are to the right my brothers said one a hard-lipped clean-shaven man with grisly hair to the right of the Sierra Blanco so we shall reach the Rio Grande said another fear not for water cried a third he who could draw it from the rocks will not now abandon his own chosen people and his noble party they were about to resume their journey when one of the youngest and keenest eyed uttered an exclamation and pointed up at the rugged crag above them from its summit there flurried a little wisp of pink showing up hard and bright against the grey rocks behind at the sight there was a general reying up of horses and unsingling of guns while fresh horsemen the word Redskins was on every lip there can't be any number of Injuns here said the elderly man who appeared to be in command we have passed the Pawnees and there are no other tribes until we cross the great mountains shall I go forward and see brother Stengerson asked one of the band and I and I leave your horses below and we will wait you here the elder answered in a moment the young fellows had dismounted fastened their horses and were ascending their precipitous slope which led up to the object which had excited their curiosity they advanced rapidly and noiselessly with the confidence and dexterity of practiced scouts they flit from rock to rock until their figure stood out against the skyline the young man who had first given the alarm was leading them suddenly his followers saw him throw up his hands as though overcome with astonishment and on joining him they were affected in the same way by the sight which met their eyes on the little plateau which crowned the barren hill there stood a single giant boulder and against this boulder there lay a tall man long bearded and hard featured but of an excessive thinness his placid face and regular breathing show that he was fast asleep beside him lay a little child with her round white arms encircling his round sinewy neck and her golden haired head resting upon the breast of his velveteen tunic her rosy lips pointed showing the regular line of snow white teeth within and a playful smile played over her infantile features her plump little white legs terminating in white socks and neat shoes with shining buckles offered a strange contrast to the long shriveled members of her companion on the ledge of rock above the strange couple there stood three solemn buzzards with utter raucous screams of disappointment and flapped sullenly away the cries of the foul birds awoke the two sleepers who stared about them in bewilderment the man staggered to his feet and looked down upon the plain which had been so desolate when sleep had overtaken him and which was now traversed by this enormous body of man and of beasts his face assumed an expression of incredulity as he gazed and he passed his bony hand over his eyes this is what they call delirium I guess he muttered the child stood beside him holding onto the skirt of his coat and said nothing but looked all round her with a wondering questioning gaze of childhood the rescuing party was speedily able to convince the two castaways that their appearance had lifted her up his shoulder while two others supported her gaunt companion and assisted him towards the wagons my name is John Ferrier the wanderer explained me and that little one are that's left of twenty people the rest is all dead of thirst and hunger away down the south is she your child asked someone I guess she is now defiantly she's mine cause I saved her no man will take her from me she's Lucy Ferrier from this day on who are you though he continued glancing with curiosity at this stalwart stalwart rescuers there seems to be a powerful lot of you night upon ten thousand said one of the young men we are the persecuted chosen of the angel Merona I never heard tell of him said the wanderer he appears to have chosen a fair crowd of you do not adjust to that which is sacred said the other sternly we are of those who believe in these sacred writings drawn in Egyptian letters on plates of beaten gold which were handed in the state of Illinois where we had founded our temple we have come to seek a refuge from the violent man and from the godless even though it be the heart of the desert the name of Nauvoo evidently recalled recollection to John Ferrier I see he said you are Mormons we are the Mormons answered his companion with one voice we do not know the hand of God is leading us under the person of our prophet you must come before him he shall say what is to be done with you they had reached the base of the hill by this time and was surrounded by crowds of the pilgrims pale faced meek looking women strong laughing children and anxious earnest eyed men many were the cries of astonishment which rose from them when they perceived the youth of one of the strangers and the destitution of the other their escort did not halt however but pushed on followed by a great crowd of Mormons until they reached a wagon which was conspicuous for its great size and for the godliness and smartness of its appearance six horses were yoked to it whereas the others were furnished with two for a piece beside the driver there sat a man who could not have been more than thirty years of age but whose massive head and resolute expression marked him as a leader he was reading a brown backed volume but as the crowd approached he laid aside and listened attentively to an account of the episode then he turned to the two castaways if we take you with us in solemn words it can only be as believers in our own creed we shall have no wolves in our fold better far that your bones should bleach in this wilderness than that you should prove to be that little speck of decay which in time corrupts the whole fruit will you come with us on these terms guess I'll come with you on any terms the leader alone retained his stern impressive expression take him brother Stangerson he said give him food and drink and the child likewise let it be your task also to teach him our holy creed we have delayed long enough forward on on to Zion on on to Zion cried the crowd of Mormons the words rippled down the long caravan passing from mouth to mouth until they died away in a dull murmur in the far distance with a crackling of whips and a creaking of wheels the great wagons got into motion and soon the whole caravan was winding along once more the elder to whose care the two waifs had been committed led them to his wagon he said in a few days you will have recovered from your fatigues in the meantime remember that now and forever you are of our religion Brigham Young has said it and he has spoken with the voice of Joseph Smith which is the voice of God chapter 2 the flower of Utah this is not the place where the invasions endured by the immigrant Mormons before they came to their final haven from the shores of the Mississippi to the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains they had struggled on with a constancy almost unparalleled in history the savage man and the savage beast hunger thirst fatigue and disease every impediment which nature could place in the way of Anglo-Saxon tenacity yet the long journey and the accumulated terrors had shaken the hearts of the stoutest among them there was not one who did not sink upon his knees in heartfelt prayer when they saw the broad valley of Utah bathed in the sunlight beneath them and learned from the lips of their leader that this was the promised land and that these virgin acres were to be theirs forevermore Young speedily proved himself to be a skillful administrator as well as a resolute chief maps were drawn and charts prepared in which the future city was sketched out all around farms were apportioned and allotted in proportion to the standing of each individual the tradesman was put to his trade and the artisan to his calling in the town streets and squares sprang up as if by magic in the country there was draining and hedging planting and clearing until the next summer saw the whole country golden with the wheat crop everything prospered in the strange settlement above all the great temple which they had erected at the break of dawn until the closing of the twilight the clatter of the hammer and the rasp of the saw was never absent from the monument which the immigrants erected to him who had led them safe through many dangers the two castaways John Ferrier and the little girl who had shared his fortunes and had been adopted as his daughter accompanied the Mormons to the end of their great pilgrimage which they carried along pleasantly enough in Elder Stangerson's wagon a retreat which she shared with the Mormons' three wives and with his son a headstrong forward boy of twelve having rallied with the elasticity of childhood from the shock caused by her mother's death she soon became a pet with the women and reconciled herself to this new life Stangerson's companions distinguished himself as a useful guide and an indefatigable hunter so rapidly did he gain the esteem of his new companions that when they reached the end of their wanderings it was unanimously agreed that he should be provided with as large and as fertile a tract of land as any of the settlers with the exception of young himself and of Stangerson,

Who were the four principal elders on the farm thus acquired John Ferriere built himself a substantial log house which received so many additions in succeeding years that it grew into a roomy villa he was a man of a practical turn of mind keen in his dealings and skillful with his hands his iron constitution enabled him to work morning and evening at improving and tilling his lands hence it came about that his farm and all that belonged to him prospered exceedingly in three years he was better off than his neighbors in six he was well to do in nine he was rich and in twelve there were not half a dozen men in the whole of Salt Lake City who could compare with him from the great inland sea to the distant Wasatch mountains there was no name better known than that of John Ferriere there was one way and only one in which he offended the susceptibilities of his core religionists no argument or persuasion could ever induce him to set up a female establishment after the manner of his companions he never gave reason for this persistent refusal but contended himself by resolutely and inflexibly there were some who accused him of lukewarmness in his adopted religion and others who put it down to greed of wealth and reluctance to incur expense others again spoke of some early love affair and of a fair-haired girl who had pinned away on the shores of the Atlantic whatever the reason Ferriere remained strictly celibate in every other respect of the young settlement and gained the name of being an orthodox and straight-walking man Lucie Ferriere grew up within the log house and assisted her adopted father in all kinds of undertakings the keen air of the mountains and the balsamic odor of the pine trees took the place of nurse and mother to the young girl as year succeeded to year she grew taller and stronger and more prudy and her step more elastic many a wayfarer upon the high road which ran by Ferriere's farm felt long-forgotten thoughts revive in their mind as they watched her life girlish figure tripping through the wheat fields or met her mounted upon her father's Mustang and managing it with all the ease and grace of a true child of the West the father the richest of the farmers left her as fair a specimen of American girlhood as could be found in the whole Pacific slope it was not the father however who first discovered that a child had developed into the woman it seldom is in such cases that mysterious change is too subtle and too gradual to be measured by dates or the touch of a hand sets her heart thrilling within her and she learns with a mixture of pride and of fear that a new and larger nature has awoken within her there are few who cannot recall that day and remember the one little accident which heralded the dawn of a new life in the case of Lucie Ferriere the occasion was serious enough in itself and that of many besides it was a warm June morning and the latter day saints were as busy as the bees whose hive they have chosen for their emblem in the fields and in the streets rose the same hum of human industry down the dusty high roads defiled long streams of heavily laden mules all heading to the West for the gold fever lay through the city of the elect there too were droves of sheep and bullocks coming in from the outlying pasture lands and trains of tired immigrants man and horses equally weary of their interminable journey through all this motley assemblage threading her way with the skill of an accomplished rider there galloped Lucie Ferriere her fair face flushed with chestnut hair floating out behind her she had a commission from her father in the city and was dashing in as she had done many a time before with all the fearlessness of youth thinking only of her task and how it was to be performed the travel-stained adventurers gazed after her in astonishment and even the unemotional Indians journeying in with their pelties relaxed their accustomed stoicism and marveled at the beauty of the pale-faced maiden she had reached the outskirts of the city when she found the road blocked by a great drove of cattle driven by a half-dozen wild-looking herdsmen from the plains in her impatience she endeavored to pass this obstacle by pushing her horse into what appeared to be a gap scarcely had she got fairly into it however she found herself completely embedded in the moving stream of fierce-eyed long-horned bullocks accustomed as she was to deal with cattle she was not alarmed in her situation but took advantage of every opportunity to urge her horse on in the hopes of pushing her way through the cavalcade unfortunately the horns of one of the creatures either by accident or design came in a violent contact with the horse's mustang and excited it to madness in an instant it reared up upon its hind legs with a snort of rage and pranced and tossed in a way that would have unseated any but a most skillful rider the situation was full of peril every plunge of the excited horse brought it against the horns again and goaded it to fresh madness it was all that the girl could do to keep herself in the saddle yet a slip would mean a terrible death under the hoofs of the unwieldy and terrified animals unaccustomed to sudden emergencies her head began to swim and her grip upon the brittle started to relax choked by the rising cloud of dust and by the steam from the struggling creatures she might have abandoned her efforts in despair but for a kindly voice she raised her hands at the same moment the sinewy brown hand caught the frightened horse by the curb and forcing a way through the drove soon brought her to the outskirts you're not hurt I hope miss said her preserver respectfully she looked at his dark fierce face and laughed saucily I'm awfully frightened she said naively whoever would have thought that this country would have been so scared by a lot of cows thank God you kept your seat the other said earnestly he was a tall savage looking young fellow mounted on a powerful rowing horse and clad in the rough dress of a hunter with a long rifle slung over his shoulders I guess you are the daughter of John Ferrier ask him if he remembers the Jefferson hopes of St.

Louis if he's the same Ferrier my father and he were pretty thick hadn't you better come and ask yourself she asked demurely the young fellow seemed pleased at the suggestion and his dark eyes sparkled with pleasure I'll do so he said we've been away for two months and are not over and above in visiting condition he must take us as he finds us he has a good deal to thank you for and so have I she answered he's awful fond of me if those cows had jumped on me he'd have never gotten over it neither would I said her companion you are a friend of ours the young hunter's dark face grew so gloomy over this remark that Lucy Ferrier laughed aloud there I didn't mean that she said of course you are a friend now you must come and see us now I must push along or father won't trust me with his business anymore goodbye goodbye he answered shaking over her little hand she wheeled her mustang around gave it a cut with her riding whip and darted away down the broad road in a rolling cloud of dust young Jefferson Hope rode on with his companions gloomy and tachytern he and they had been among the Nevada mountains prospecting for silver and were returning to Salt Lake City in the hope of raising capital enough to work some loads which they had discovered he had been as keen as any of them upon the business until the sudden incident had drawn his thoughts into another channel the sight of the fair young girl as frank and wholesome as the Sierra breezes had stirred his volcanic untamed heart to its very depths when she had vanished from his sight he realized that a crisis had come in his life and that neither silver speculations nor any other questions could ever be of such importance to him as this new and all-absorbing one the love which had sprung up in his heart was not the sudden changeable fancy of a boy but rather the wild fierce passion of a man of strong will and imperious temper he had been accustomed to succeed in all that he undertook he swore in his heart that he would not fail in this if human effort and human perseverance could render him successful he called on John Ferrier that night and many times again until his face was a familiar one at the farmhouse John,

Cooped up in the valley and absorbed in his work had had little chance to see the world during the last twelve years all this Jefferson Hope was able to tell him and in a style which interested Lucy as well as her father he had been a pioneer in California and could narrate many a strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost in those wild,

Halcyon days he had been a scout too and a trapper a silver explorer wherever stirring adventures were to be had Jefferson Hope had been there in search of them he soon became a favorite with the old farmer who spoke eloquently of his virtues on such occasions Lucy was silent but her blushing cheek and her bright happy eyes showed only too clearly that her young heart was no longer her own but they were assuredly not thrown away upon the man who had won her affections it was a summer evening when he came galloping down the road and pulled up at the gate she was at the doorway and came down to meet him he threw the brittle over the fence and strode up the pathway I am off Lucy he said taking her two hands in his and gazing tenderly down I won't ask you to come with me now but will you be ready to come when I am here again and when will that be she asked blushing and laughing a couple of months at the outside I will come and claim you then my darling there is no one who can stand between us and how about father she asked he has given his consent and his mind is working alright I have no fear on that head oh well of course if you and father have arranged it all there is no more to be said she whispered with her cheek against his broad breast thank God he said hoarsely stooping and kissing her it is settled then the longer I stay the harder it will be to go they are waiting for me goodbye my own darling goodbye in two months you shall see me he tore himself from her as she spoke and flinging himself upon his horse galloped furiously away never even looking round as though afraid that his resolution might fail him if he took one glance at what he was leaving she stood at the gate gazing after him then she walked back into the house the happiest girl in all Utah chapter 3 John Ferrier talks with the prophet three weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his comrades had departed from Salt Lake City John Ferrier's heart was sore within him when he thought of the young man's return and of the impending loss of his adopted child which had brought him to the arrangement more than any argument could have done he had always determined deep down in his resolute heart that nothing would ever induce him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon such a marriage regarded as no marriage at all but as shame and a disgrace whatever he might think of the Mormon doctrines upon that one he was inflexible and an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in the land of the saints yes a dangerous matter so dangerous that even the most saintly dared only whisper their religious opinions with bathed breath lest something which fell from their lips might be misconstrued and bring down a swift retribution upon them and persecutors of the most terrible description not the inquisition of Seville nor the German Wengericht nor the secret societies of Italy were ever able to put a more forbidable machinery in motion than that which cast a cloud over the state of Utah its invisibility and the mystery which was attached to it made this organization doubly terrible arrogant and omnipotent and yet was neither seen nor heard the man who held out against the church vanished away and none knew whether he had gone or what had befallen him his wife and his children awaited him at home but no father ever returned to tell them how he had fared at the hands of his secret judges a rash word or a hasty act was followed by annihilation and no one knew what the nature might be of this terrible power which was suspended over them no wonder that men went about in fear and trembling and that even in the heart of the wilderness they dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed them at first this vague and terrible power was exercised only upon the recalcitrants who have embraced soon however it took a wider range the supply of adult women was running short and polygamy without a female population on which to draw was a barren doctrine indeed strange rumors began to be bandied about rumors of murdered immigrants and rifled camps in regions where Indians had never been seen fresh women appeared in the harems of the elders women who pined and wept and in their faces the traces of an unextinguishable horror belated wanderers upon the mountains spoke of gangs of armed men masked,

Stealthy and noiseless who flitted by them in the darkness these tales and rumors took substance and shape and were corroborated and re-corroborated until they resolved themselves into a definite name to this day the name of the Danite band or the Avenging Angels is a sinister and ill-omened one fuller knowledge of the organization which produced such terrible results served to increase rather than to lessen the horror which it inspired in the minds of men none knew who belonged to this ruthless society the names of the participators in the deeds of blood and violence done under the name of religion were kept profoundly secret the very friend to whom you communicated your misgivings as to the prophet and his mission might be one of those who could come forth at night with fire and sword to exact a terrible reparation hence every man feared his neighborhood and none spoke of the things which were nearest his heart one fine morning John Ferrier was about to set out to his wheat fields at the click of the latch and looking through the window saw a stout sandy-haired middle-aged man coming up the pathway his heart leapt to his mouth for this was none other than the great Brigham Young himself full of trepidation for he knew that such a visit boded him little good Ferrier ran to the door to greet the Mormon chief the latter however received his salutations coldly with a stern face into the sitting room brother Ferrier he said taking a seat and eyeing the farmer keenly from his light-colored eyelashes the true believers have been good friends to you we picked you up when you were starving in the desert we shared our food with you led you safe to the chosen valley gave you a goodly share of the land and allowed you to wax rich under our protection is not this so?

It is so answered John Ferrier in return for all this we asked but one condition that was that you should embrace the true faith and conform in every way to its usages this you promised to do and this if common report says truly you have neglected and how have I neglected it?

Asked Ferrier throwing out his hands in expostulation have I not given the common fund?

Have I not attended at the temple?

Have I not where are your wives?

Asked young looking round him call them in that I may greet them it is true that I have not married Ferrier answered but women were few and there were many who had better claims than I I was not a lonely man I had my daughter to attend to my wants it is of that daughter that I would speak to you said the leader of the Mormons she has grown to be the flower of Utah and has found favor in the eyes of the many who are high in the land John Ferrier groaned internally there are stories of her which I would feign disbelief stories that she is sealed to some Gentile this must be the gossip of idle tongues what is the 13th rule in the code of the Sainted Joseph Smith?

Let every maiden of the true faith marry one of the elect for if she wed a Gentile she commits a grievous sin this being so it is impossible that you who profess the holy creed should suffer your daughter to violate it John Ferrier made no answer but he played nervously with his riding whip upon this one point your whole faith shall be tested so it has been decided in the secret council of four the girl is young and we would not have her wet gray hairs neither would we deprive her of all choice we elders have many heifers but our children must also be provided Stangerson has a son and Drebber has a son and either of them would gladly welcome your daughter to their house let her choose between them they are young and rich and of the true faith what say you to that?

Ferrier remained silent for a little time with his browns knitted you will give us time he said at last my daughter is very young she is scarce of an age to marry she shall have a month to choose said young rising from his seat at the end of that time she shall give her answer he was passing through the door when he turned with flushed face it is better for you John Ferrier he thundered that you and she were now lying blanched skeletons upon the Sierra Blanco than that you should put your weak wills against the order of the holy four with a threatening gesture of his hand he turned from the door and Ferrier heard his voice considering how he should broach the matter to his daughter when a soft hand was laid upon his and looking up he saw her standing beside him one glance at her pale frightened face showed him that she had heard what had passed I could not help it she said in answer I do don't you scare yourself he answered drawing her to him and passing his broad rough hand caressingly over her chestnut hair we'll fix it up somehow or another you don't find your fancy kind of lessening for this chap do you a sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer no the day you did he's a likely lad and he's a Christian which is more than these folk here in spite of all their praying and preaching there's a party starting for Nevada tomorrow and I'll manage to send him a message letting him know the hole we are in if I know anything of that young man he'll be back here with a speed that would whip electro telegraphs Lucy laughed through her tears at her father's description when he comes he will advise us for the best but it is you for that I am frightened dear one hears one hears such dreadful stories about those who oppose the prophet something terrible always happens to them but we haven't opposed him yet her father answered it will be time to look out for squalls when we do we have a clear month before us at the end of that I guess we had best shin out of Utah leave Utah that's about the size of it but the farm we will raise as much as we can in money and let the rest go to tell the truth Lucy it isn't the first time I have thought of doing it I don't care about knuckling under to any man as these folk do to their darn prophet I'm a free born American and it's all new to me guess I'm too old to learn if he comes browsing about this farm he might chance to run up against a charge of buckshot travelling in the opposite direction but they won't let us leave his daughter objective wait till Jefferson comes and we'll soon manage that in the meantime don't you fret yourself my dearie and don't get your eyes swelled up else he'll be walking into me when he sees you there's nothing to be feared about and there's no danger at all John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident tone but she could not help observing that he paid unusual care to the fastening of the doors at night and that he carefully cleaned and loaded the rusty old shotgun on the wall of his bedroom Chapter 4 A Flight for Life On the morning which followed his interview with the Mormon prophet John Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City and having found his acquaintance who was bound for the Nevada mountains he entrusted him with his message to Jefferson Hope in it he told the young man of the imminent danger which threatened them that he should return having done thus he felt easier in his mind and returned home with a lighter heart as he approached his farm he was surprised to see a horse hitched to each of the posts of the gate still more surprised was he on entering to find two young men in possession of his sitting room one with a long pale face was leaning back with his feet cocked up on the stove the other a bold necked youth with coarse bloated features was standing in front of the window with his hands in his pockets whistling a popular hymn both of them nodded to Ferrier as he entered and the one in the rocking chair commenced the conversation maybe you don't know us he said this here and I'm Joseph Stangerson who traveled with you in the desert when the Lord stretched out his hand and gathered you into the true fold as he will all the nations in his own good time said the other in a nasal voice he grindeth slowly but exceeding small John Ferrier bowed coldly he had guessed who his visitors were he continued Stangerson at the advice of our fathers to solicit the hand of your daughter for whichever of us may seem good to you and to her as I have but four wives and brother Drebber here has seven it appears to me that my claim is a stronger one nay,

Nay,

Brother Stangerson cried the other the question is not how many wives we have my father has now given over his mills to me and I am the richer man but my prospects are better said the other wormly when the Lord removes my father I shall have his tanning yard and his leather factory then I am your elder and I am higher in the church it will be for the maiden to decide rejoined young Drebber smirking at his own reflection in the glass we will leave it all to her decision during this dialogue John Ferrier had stood fuming in the doorway hardly able to keep his riding whip from the backs of his two visitors look here he said at last striding up to them when my daughter summons you again I don't want to see your faces again the two young Mormons stared at him in amazement in their eyes this competition between them for the maiden's hand was the highest of honors both to her and her father there are two ways out of the room cried Ferrier there is the door and there is the window his face looked so savage in his gaunt hands so threatening that his visitors sprang to their feet and beat a hurried retreat the old farmer followed them to the door let me know when you have settled which it is to be he said sardonically you shall smart for this Stangerson cried white with rage you have defied the prophet of war you shall rue it to the end of your days the hand of the Lord shall be heavy upon you cried young Drebber he will arise and smite you then I'll start the smiting exclaimed Ferrier furiously and would have rushed upstairs for his gun had not Lucy seized him by the arm and restrained him before he could escape from her the clatter of horses hooves they were beyond his reach the young canting rascals he exclaimed wiping the perspiration from his forehead I would sooner see you in your grave my girl than the wife of either of them and so should I father she answered with spirit but Jefferson will soon be here yes it will not be long before he comes the sooner the better to know what their next move may be it was indeed high time that someone capable of giving advice and help should come to the aid of the sturdy old farmer and his adopted daughter in the whole history of the settlement there had never been such a case of rank disobedience to the authority of the elders if minor errors were punished so sternly what would be the fate of this arch rebel Therrier knew that his wealth and position would be of no avail to him others as well known and as rich as himself had been spirited away before now in their goods given over to the church he was a brave man but he trembled at the vague shadowy terrors which hung over him any known danger he could face with a firm lip but his suspense he concealed his fears from his daughter however and defected to make light of the whole matter though she with a keen eye of love saw plainly that he was ill at ease he expected that he would receive some message or remonstrance from young as to his conduct and he was not mistaken though it came in an unlooked for manner upon rising next morning to his surprise a small square of paper pinned on to the coverlet of his bed just over his chest on it was printed in bold straggling letters 29 days are given you for amendment and then the dash was more fear inspiring than any threat could have been how this warning came into his room puzzled John Therrier sorely he was in the courthouse and the doors and windows had been all secured he crumpled the paper up and said nothing to his daughter but the incident struck a chill into his heart the 29 days were evidently the balance of the month which young had promised what strength and courage could avail against an enemy armed with such mysterious powers the hand which fastened that pin might have struck him to the heart of the unknown who had slain him still more shaken was he next morning they had sat down to their breakfast when Lucy with a cry of surprise pointed upwards in the center of the ceiling was scrawled with a burned stick apparently the number 28 to his daughter it was unintelligible and he did not enlighten her that night by watch and word he saw and he heard nothing and yet in the morning the great 27 had been painted upon the outside of his door thus day followed day and as sure as morning came he found that his unseen enemies had kept their register and had marked up in some conspicuous position how many days were still left to him out of the month of grace sometimes the fatal numbers appeared upon the walls sometimes upon the floors occasionally they were on small placards stuck upon the garden gate or the railings with all his vigilance John Ferrier could not discover whence these daily warnings proceeded a horror which was almost superstitious came upon him at the sight of them he became haggard and restless and his eyes had the troubled look of some hunted creature he had but one hope in life now and that was for the arrival of the young hunter from Nevada 20 had changed to 15 and 15 to 10 but there was no news of the absentee one by one the numbers dwindled in town and still there came no sign of him whenever a horseman clattered down the road or a driver shouted at his team the old farmer hurried to the gate thinking that help had arrived at last at last when he saw 5 give way to 4 and that again to 3 he lost heart and abandoned all hope of escape single-handed and with his limited knowledge of the mountains which surrounded the settlement he was helpless the more frequented roads were strictly watched and guarded and none could pass along them without an order from the council turn which way he would there appeared to be no avoiding the blow which hung over him yet the old man never wavered in his resolution to part with life itself before he consented to what he regarded as an evening pondering deeply over his troubles and searching vainly for some way out of them that morning had shown the figure 2 upon the wall of his house and the next day would be the last of the allotted time what was to happen then all manner of vague and terrible fancies filled his imagination and his daughter what was to become of her was there no escape from the invisible network which was drawn all around them he sank his head upon the table and sobbed at the thought of his own impotence what was that in the silence he heard a gentle scratching sound low but very distinct in the quiet of the night it came from the door of the house Ferrier crept into the hall and listened intently there was a pause for a few moments and then the low insidious sound was repeated someone was evidently tapping very gently upon one of the panels of the door was it some midnight assassin who had come to carry out the murderous orders of the secret tribunal or was it some agent who was marking up that the last day of grace has arrived what was there than the suspense which shook his nerves and chilled his heart springing forward he drew the bolt and threw the door open outside all was calm and quiet the night was fine and the stars were twinkling brightly overhead the little front garden lay before the farmer's eyes bounded by the fence and gate but neither there could be seen with a sigh of relief Ferrier looked to right and to left until happening to glance straight down at his own feet he saw to his astonishment a man laying flat upon his face upon the ground with arms and legs all a sprawl so unnerved was he at the sight that he leaned up against the wall with his hand to his throat to stifle his inclination to call out his first thought was that the prostrate figure was that of a some wounded or dying man but as he watched it he saw it writh along the ground and into the hall with the rapidity and noiselessness of a serpent once within the house the man sprang to his feet closed the door and revealed to the astonished farmer the fierce face of hope good God gasped John Ferrier how you scared me whatever made you come in like that give me food the other said hoarsely I have had no time for bite or sup for eight and forty hours he flung himself upon the cold meat and bread which were still lying upon the table from his host's supper and devoured it voraciously does Lucy bear up as well he asked when he had satisfied his hunger yes she does not know the danger her father answered that is well the house is watched on every side that is why I crawled my way up to it they may be darn sharp but they're not quite sharp enough to catch a washu hunter John Ferrier felt a different man now that he realized that he had a devoted ally he seized the young man's leathery hand and wrung it cordially you're a man to be proud of he said there are not many who would come to share our dangers and troubles you've hit it there part the young hunter answered I have a respect for you but if you were alone in this business I'd think twice before I put my head into such a hornet's nest it's Lucy that brings me here and before harm comes on her I guess there will be one less of the Hope family in Utah what are we to do tomorrow is your last day and unless you act tonight you are lost I have a mule and two horses waiting in the Eagle ravine how much money have you two thousand dollars in gold and five in notes that will do I have as much more to add to it we must push for Carson City through the mountains you had best wake Lucy it is as well that the servants do not sleep in the house while Ferrier was absent preparing his daughter for the approaching journey Jefferson Hope packed all the eatables that he could find into a small parcel and filled a stoneware jar with water for he knew by experience that the mountain wells were few and far between he had hardly completed his arrangement before the farmer returned with his daughter all dressed and ready for his start the greeting between the lovers was warm but brief for minutes were precious and there was much to be done we must make our start at once said Jefferson Hope speaking in a low but resolute voice like one who realizes the greatness of the peril but has steeled his heart to meet it the front and back entrances are watched but with caution we may get away through the side window and across the fields once on the road we are only two miles from the ravine where the horses are waiting by daybreak we should be halfway through the mountains what if we are stopped asked Thurier Hope slapped the revolver butt which protruded from the front of his tunic if they are too many for us we shall take two or three of them with us he said with a sinister smile the lights inside the house had all been extinguished and from the darkened window Thurier peered over the fence into the fields which had been his own and which he was now about to abandon forever he had long nerved himself to the sacrifice,

However and the thought of the honor and happiness of his daughter outweighed any regret at his ruined fortunes all looked so peaceful and happy the rustling trees and the broad silent stretch of grain land that it was difficult to realize that the spirit of murder lurked through it all the peace and set expression of the young hunter showed in his approach to the house he had seen enough to satisfy him upon the head Thurier carried the bag of golden notes Jefferson Hope had the scanty provisions and water while Lucy had a small bundle containing a few of her more valued possessions opening the window very slowly and carefully they waited until a dark cloud somewhat obscured the night and then one by one passed through into the little garden with bated breath and crouching figures they stumbled across it and gained the shelter of the hedge which they skirted until they came to the gap which opened into the cornfields they had just reached this point when the young man seized his two companions and dragged them down into the shadow where they lay silent stumbling it was as well that his prairie training had given Jefferson Hope the ears of a lynx he and his friends had hardly crouched down before the melancholy hooting of a mountain owl was heard within a few yards of them which was immediately answered by another hoot at a small distance at the same moment a vague shadowy figure emerged from the gap and uttered the plaintive signal try again on which a second man appeared out of the obscurity tomorrow at midnight said the first who appeared to be in authority when the whip poor wills calls three times it is well returned the other shall I tell brother Drebber pass it on to him and from him to the others nine to seven seven to five repeated the other and the two figures flitted away in different directions their concluding words had evidently been some form of sign and countersign the instant that their footsteps had died away in the distance Jefferson Hope sprang to his feet and helping his companions through the gap led the way across the field at the top of his speed supporting and half carrying the girl hurry on hurry on he gasped from time to time we are through the line of sentinels everything depends on speed hurry on once on the high road they made rapid progress only once did they meet anyone and then they managed to slip into a field and so avoid recognition before reaching the town the hunter branched away into a rugged and narrow footpath which led to the mountains two dark jagged peaks loomed above them through the darkness and the file which led between them was the eagle canyon in which the horses were awaiting them with unerring instinct Jefferson Hope picked his way among the great boulders and along the bed of a dried up water course until he came to the retired corner screened with rocks where the faithful animals had been picketed the girl was placed upon the mule and old furrier upon one of the horses with his money bag while Jefferson Hope led the other along the precipitous and dangerous path it was a bewildering brute for anyone who was not accustomed to face nature in her wildest moods on the one side a great crag stern and menacing with long basaltic columns upon its rugged surface like the ribs of some petrified monster on the other hand a wild chaos of boulders and debris made all advance impossible between the two ran the irregular track so narrow in places that they had to travel in Indian file and so rough that only practiced riders could have traversed it at all yet in spite of all dangers and difficulties the hearts of the fugitives were light within them for every step increased the distance between them and the terrible despotism from which they were flying they soon had proof however that they were still within the jurisdiction of the saints they had reached the very wildest upwards on a rock which overlooked the track showing out dark and plain against the sky there stood a solitary sentinel he saw them as soon as they perceived him and his military challenge of who goes there rang through the silent ravine travelers for Nevada said Jefferson Hope with his hand upon the rifle which hung by his saddle the soldier fingering his gun and peering down at them as if dissatisfied at their reply by whose permission he asked the holy four answered furrier his Mormon experiences has taught him that that was the highest authority to which he could refer 9 from 7 cried the sentinel 7 from 5 which he had heard in the garden pass and let the Lord go with you said the voice from above beyond his post the path broadened out and the horses were able to break into a trot looking back they could see the solitary watcher leaning upon his gun and knew that they had passed the outlying post of the chosen people and that freedom lay before them chapter 5 challenging angels all night their course lay through intricate defiles and over irregular and rock-strewn paths more than once they lost their way but Hope's intimate knowledge of the mountains enabled them to regain the track once more when morning broke a scene of marvelous though savage beauty lay before them in every direction and their cheeks hemmed them in peeping over each other's shoulders to the far horizon so steep were the rocky banks on either side of them that the larch and the pine seemed to be suspended over their heads and to need only a gust of wind to come hurtling down upon them nor was the fear entirely an illusion for the barren valley was thickly strewn in their manner even as they passed a great rock came thundering down with a hoarse rattle which woke the echoes in the silent gorges and startled the weary horses into a gallop as the sun rose slowly above the eastern horizon the caps of the great mountains lit up one after the other like lamps at a festival until they were all ruddy and glowing like the three fugitives and gave them fresh energy at a wild torrent which swept out of a ravine they called a halt and watered their horses while they partook of a hasty breakfast Lucy and her father with Thane have rested longer but Jefferson Hope was inexorable they will be upon our tracks by this time he said we may rest for the remainder of our lives during the whole of that day they struggled on through the defiles and by evening they calculated that they were more than 30 miles from their enemies at night time they chose the base of a beetle-ink crag where the rocks offered some protection from the chill wind however they were up and on their way once more they had seen no signs of any pursuers and Jefferson Hope began to think that they were fairly out of reach of the terrible organization whose enmity they had incurred he little knew how far that iron grasp could reach or how soon it was the store of provisions began to run out this gave the hunter little uneasiness however for there was game to be had among the mountains and he had frequently before had to depend upon his rifle for the needs of life choosing a sheltered nook he piled together a few dried branches and made a blazing fire at which his companions might warm themselves and the air was bitter and keen having tethered the horses and bade Lucy adieu he threw his gun over his shoulder and set out in search for whatever chance might throw in his way looking back he saw the old man and the young girl crouching over the blazing fire while the three animals stood motionless he walked for a couple of miles through one ravine after another without success though from the marks upon the bark of the trees and other indications he judged that there were numerous bears in the vicinity at last after two or three hours fruitless search he was thinking of turning back in despair when casting his eyes upwards he saw a sight 400 feet above him there stood a creature somewhat resembling a sheep in appearance but armed with a pair of gigantic horns the big horn for so it is called was acting probably as a guardian over a flock which were invisible to the hunter but fortunately it was heading in the opposite direction and had not perceived him lying on his face he rested his rifle upon a rock and took a long and steady aim before drawing the trigger the animal sprang into the air tottered for a moment upon the edge of the precipice and then came crashing down into the valley beneath the creature was too unwieldy to lift so the hunter contended himself with cutting away one haunch and part of the flank with this trophy over his shoulder he hastened to retrace his steps for the evening before drawing in he had hardly started however before he realized the difficulty which faced him in his eagerness he had wandered far past the ravines which were known to him and it was no easy matter to pick out the path which he had taken the valley in which he found himself divided and subdivided into many gorges which were so like each other that it was impossible to see them before until he came to a mountain torrent which he was sure that he had never seen before convinced that he had taken the wrong turn he tried another but with the same result night was coming on rapidly and it was almost dark before he at last found himself in a defile which was familiar to him even then it was no easy matter because the high cliffs on either side made the obscurity more profound weighed down with his burden and weary from his exertions he stumbled along keeping up his heart by the reflection that every step brought him nearer to Lucy and that he carried with him enough to ensure them food for the remainder of their journey he had now come to the mouth of the very defile and the high cliffs which bounded it they must,

He reflected be awaiting him anxiously for he had been absent nearly five hours in the gladness of his heart he put his hands to his mouth and made the glen re-echo to a loud halloo as a signal that he was coming he paused and listened for an answer none came save his own cry which clattered up his ears in countless repetitions again he shouted even louder than before and again no whisper came back from the friends whom he had left such a short time ago a vague,

Nameless dread came over him and he hurried onwards frantically dropping the precious food in his agitation when he turned the corner he came full sight of the spot where the fire had been lit and the pile of wood ashes there but it had evidently not been tended since his departure the same dead silence still reigned all around with his fears all changed to convictions he hurried on there was no living creature near the remains and the fire animals or men or maiden all were gone it was only too clear that some sudden and terrible disaster had occurred during his absence which had embraced them all and yet had left no traces behind it bewildered and stunned by his blow Jefferson Hope felt his head spin around and had to lean upon his rifle to save himself from falling he was essentially a man of action,

However and speedily recovered from his temporary impotence seizing a half-consumed piece of wood from the smoldering fire he blew it into a flame and proceeded with its help to examine the little camp the ground was all stamped down by the feet of horses showing that a large party of mounted men had overtaken the fugitives and the direction of their tracks proved that they had afterwards turned back to Salt Lake City had they carried back both of his companions with them Jefferson Hope had almost persuaded himself that they must have done so when his eye fell upon an object which made every nerve of his body tingle within him a little way on one side of the camp was a low-lying heap of reddish soil which had assuredly not been there before there was no mistaking it for anything but a newly dug grave as the young hunter approached it he perceived that a stick had been planted on it with a sheet of paper stuck in the cleft fork of it the inscription upon the paper read but to the point John Ferrier formerly of Salt Lake City died August 4th,

1860 the sturdy old man whom he had left so short a time before was gone and this was all his epitaph Jefferson Hope looked wildly round to see if there was a second grave but there was no sign of one Lucy had been carried back by their terrible pursuers to fulfill her original destiny by becoming one of her harem of the elder's son as the young fellow realized the certainty of her fate and his own powerlessness to prevent it he wished that he too was lying with the old farmer in his last silent resting place again however his active spirit shook off the lethargy which springs from despair if there was nothing else for him he could at least devote his life to revenge with indomitable patience and perseverance Jefferson Hope possessed also a power of sustained vindictiveness which he may have learned from the Indians amongst whom he had lived as he stood by the desolate fire he felt that the only thing which could assuage his grief would be thorough and complete retribution brought by his own hand upon his enemies with his will and untiring energy should,

He determined be devoted to that one end with a grim white face he retraced his steps to where he had dropped the food and having stirred up for the smoldering fire he cooked enough to last him for a few days this he made up into a bundle and,

Tired as he was he set himself to walk back through the mountains for five days he toiled foot sore and wearied through the defiles which he had already traversed on horseback at night he flung himself down among the rocks and snatched a few hours of sleep but before daybreak he was always well on his way on the sixth day he reached the Eagle Canyon from which they had commenced their ill-fated flight thence he could look down worn and exhausted he leaned upon his rifle and shook his gaunt hand fiercely at the silent widespread city beneath him as he looked at it he observed that there were flags in some of the principal streets and other signs of festivity he was still speculating as to what this might mean when he heard the clatter of a horse's hoofs and saw a mounted man riding towards him a Mormon named Cowper to whom he had rendered services at different times he therefore accosted him when he got up to him with the object of finding out what Lucifer's fate had been I am Jefferson Hope he said you remember me the Mormon looked at him with undisguised astonishment indeed it was difficult to recognize in this tattered unkept wanderer a white face and fierce wild eyes the spruce young hunter of former days having however at last satisfied himself as to his identity the man's surprise changed to consternation you are mad to come here he cried it is as much as my own life is worth to be seen talking with you there is a warrant against you from the holy four for assisting the farriers away from them or their warrant Hope said earnestly you must know something of this matter Cowper I conjure you by everything you hold dear to answer a few questions we have always been friends for God's sake don't refuse to answer me what is it the Mormon asked uneasily be quick the very rocks have ears and the trees eyes what has become of Lucy Farrier she was married yesterday to young Drebber hold up man hold up you have no life left in you don't mind me said Hope faintly he was white to the very lips and had sunk down on the stone against which he had been leaning married you say married yesterday that's what those flags are for on the endowment house there was some words between young Drebber and young Stangerson as to which was to have her they'd both been in the party that followed them and Stangerson had shot her father which seemed to give him the best claim but when they argued it out in the council Drebber's party was stronger so the prophet gave her over to him no one won't have her very long though when he saw her face yesterday she is more like a ghost than a woman are you off then yes I am off said Jefferson Hope who had risen from his seat his face might have been chiseled out of marble so hard and set was its expression while its eyes glowed with a baleful light where are you going never mind he answered and took her over his shoulder strode off down the gorge and so away into the heart of the mountains to the haunts of the wild beasts amongst them all there was was none so fierce and so dangerous as himself the prediction of the Mormon was only too well fulfilled whether it was a terrible death of her father or the effects of the hateful marriage into which had been forced poor Lucy never held up her head again she lay and died within a month her sottish husband who had married her principally for the sake of John Ferrier's property did not effect any great grief at this bereavement but his other wives mourned over her and set up with her the night before the burial as is the Mormon custom they were grouped round their bier in the early hours of the morning when to their inexpressible fear and astonishment the door was flung open and a savage-looking weather-beaten man in tattered garments strode into the room without a glance or a word to the covering women he walked up to the white silent figure which had once contained the pure soul of Lucy Ferrier stooping over her he pressed his lips reverently to her cold forehead and then snatching up her hand he said I will not be buried in that he cried with a fierce snarl and before an alarm could be raised sprang down the stairs and was gone so strange and so brief was the episode that the watchers might have found it hard to believe it themselves or persuade other people of it had it not been for the undeniable fact that the circlet of gold which marked her the curse and hope lingered among the mountains leading a strange wild life and nursing in his heart the fierce desire for vengeance which had possessed him tales were told in the city of the weird figure which was seen prowling about the suburbs and which haunted the lonely mountain gorges once a bullet whistled through Sanderson's window and flattened itself upon the wall within a foot of him a great boulder crashed down on him and he only escaped a terrible death by throwing himself upon his face the two young Mormons were not long in discovering the reason of these attempts upon their lives and led repeated expeditions into the mountains in the hope of capturing or killing their enemy but always without success then they adopted the precaution of never going out alone and started after a time they were able to relax these measures for nothing was either heard or seen of their opponent and they hoped that time had cooled his vindictiveness far from doing so it had,

If anything,

Augmented it the hunter's mind was of a hard,

Unyielding nature and the predominant idea of revenge had taken such a complete possession of it that there was no room for revenge he was,

However,

Above all things,

Practical he soon realized that even his iron constitution could not stand the incessant strain which he was putting upon it exposure and want of wholesome food were wearing him out if he died like a dog among the mountains what was to become of his revenge then and yet such a death was sure to ruin his enemy's game so he reluctantly returned to the old Nevada mines there to recruit his health and to amass money enough to allow him to pursue his object without privation his intention had been to be absent a year at the most but a combination of unforeseen circumstances prevented his leaving the mines for nearly five at the end of that time,

However his plans for revenge were quite as keen as on that memorable night when he stood by John Ferrier's grave disguised and under an assumed name he returned to Salt Lake City careless what became of his own life as long as he obtained what he knew to be justice there he found evil tidings awaiting him there had been a schism held against the authority of the elders and the result had been the succession of a certain number of malcontents who had left Utah and became Gentiles among these had been Drebber and Stangerson and no one knew whither they had gone rumor reported that Drebber had managed to convert a large part of his property into money there was no clue at all however as to their whereabouts many a man however vindictive would have abandoned all thought of revenge in the face of such a difficulty but Jefferson Hope never faltered for a moment with a small competence he possessed eked out by such employment as he could pick up he traveled from town to town year to year his black hair turned grizzled but still he wandered on a human bloodhound with his mind wholly set upon the one object upon which he had devoted his life at last his perseverance was rewarded it was but a glance of a face in a window but that one glance told him that Cleveland in Ohio possessed the man whom he was in pursuit of the man of vengeance all arranged it chanced however that Drebber looked from his window had recognized the vagrant in the street and had read murder in his eyes he hurried before a justice of the peace accompanied by Stangerson who had become his private secretary and represented to him that they were in danger of their lives from the jealousy and hatred of an old rival that evening to find sureties was detained for some weeks when at last he was liberated it was only to find that Drebber's house was deserted and that he and his secretary had departed for Europe again the avenger had been foiled and again his concentrated hatred urged him to continue the pursuit funds were wanting however and for some time he had to return to work saving every dollar for his approaching journey at last having collected enough to keep life in him he departed for Europe and tracked his enemies from city to city working his way in any menial capacity but never overtaking the fugitives when he reached St.

Petersburg they had departed for Paris and when he followed them there they had departed for Copenhagen at the Danish capital he was again a few days late for they had journeyed on to London where he at last succeeded in running them to earth as to what occurred there we cannot do better than quote the old hunter's own account as duly noted in Dr.

Watson's journal to which we are already under such obligations chapter 6 a continuation of John Watson our prisoner's furious resistance did not apparently indicate any ferocity in his disposition towards ourselves for on finding himself powerless he smiled in an affable manner and expressed his hopes that he had not hurt any of us in the scuffle I guess you're going to take me to the police station he remarked to Sherlock Holmes my cab's at the door if you'll lose my legs I'll walk down to it I'm not so light to lift as I used to be Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances as if they thought this proposition rather a bold one but Holmes at once took the prisoner at his word and loosened the towel which we had bound around his ankles he rose and stretched his legs as though to assure himself that they were free once more I remember that I thought to myself as I eyed him that I had seldom seen a more powerfully built man and his dark sunburned face bore an expression of determination an energy which was as formidable as his personal strength if there's a vacant place for a chief of the police I reckon you are the man for it he said gazing with undistinguished admiration at my fellow lodger the way you kept on my trail was a caution you had better come with me said Holmes to the two detectives I can drive you said Lestrade good and Gregson can come inside with me you too doctor you have taken an interest in the case and may as well stick to us I assented gladly and we all descended together our prisoner made no attempt at escape but stepped calmly into the cab which had been his and we followed him Lestrade mounted the box whipped up the horse and brought us in a very short time to our destination we were ushered into a small chamber where a police inspector noted down our prisoner's name and the names of the men with whose murders he had been charged the official was a white-faced unemotional man who went through his duties in a dull mechanical way the prisoner will be put before the magistrates in the course of the week he said in the meantime Mr.

Jefferson Hope have you anything that you wish to say I must warn you that your words will be taken down and may be used against you I've got a deal to say our prisoner said slowly I want to tell you gentlemen all about it hadn't you better reserve that for your trial ask the inspector I may never be tried he answered you needn't look startled it isn't suicide I am thinking of are you a doctor he turned his fierce dark eyes upon me as he asked this last question yes I am I answered then put your hand here he said with a smile motioning with his manacled wrists toward his chest I did so and became at once conscious of an extraordinary throbbing and commotion which was going on inside the walls of his chest seemed to thrill and quiver as a frail building would do inside when some powerful engine was at work in the silence of the room I could hear a dull humming and buzzing noise which proceeded from the same source why?

I cried you have an aortic aneurysm that's what they call it he said placidly I went to a doctor last week about it and he told me that it is bound to burst before many days passed it has been getting worse for years I got it from overexposure and underfeeding I've done my work now and I don't care how soon I go but I should like to leave some account of the business behind me I don't want to be remembered as a common cutthroat the inspector and the two detectives had a hurried discussion asked to the advisability of allowing him to tell his story do you consider doctor that there is immediate danger the former asked most certainly there is I answered in that case it is clearly our duty in the interests of justice to take his statement said the inspector you are at liberty sir to give your account which I again warn you will be taken down I'll sit down with your leave the prisoner said suiting the action to the word this aneurysm of mine makes me easily tired and the tussle we had half an hour ago matters I'm on the brink of the grave and I am not likely to lie to you every word I say is the absolute truth and how you use it is a matter of no consequence to me with these words Jefferson Hope leaned back in his chair and began the following remarkable statement he spoke in a calm and methodical manner as though the events were not so much for the accuracy of the subjoined account for I have had access to Lestrade's notebook in which the prisoner's words were taken down exactly as they were uttered it don't much matter to you why I hated these men he said it's enough that they were guilty of the death of two human beings a father and a daughter and that they had therefore forfeited their own lives it was impossible for me to secure a conviction against them in any court I knew of their guilt though and I determined that I should be judge,

Jury and executioner all rolled into one you'd have done the same if you have any manhood in you if you had been in my place that girl that I spoke of was to have married me twenty years ago she was forced into marrying and broke her heart over it I took the marriage ring from her dead finger and I vowed that his dying eyes would rest upon that very ring and that his last thoughts should be of the crime for which she was punished I have carried it about with me and have followed him and his accomplice over two continents until I caught them they thought to tire me out but they could not do it I die knowing that my work in this world is done and well done they have perished and by my hand there is nothing left for me to hope for or to desire they were rich and I was poor so that it was no easy matter for me to follow them when I got to London my pocket was about empty and I found that I must turn my hand to something for my living so I applied at a cab owner's office and soon got employment I was to bring a certain sum a week to the owner and whatever was over that I might keep for myself there was seldom much over but I managed to scrape along somehow the hardest job was to learn my way about for I reckon that all of the mazes that ever were contrived this city is the most confusing I had the map beside me though and when once I had spotted several hotels and stations I got on pretty well it was some time before I found out where my two gentlemen were living but I inquired and inquired until at last I dropped across them they were at a boarding house at Camberwell over on the other side of the river when once I found them I knew that I had them at my mercy I had grown my beard and there was no chance of they recognizing me I followed them until I saw my opportunity I was determined that they should not escape me again they were very near doing it for all that go where they would about London I was always at their heels sometimes I followed them on my cap and sometimes on foot but the former was the best for then they could not get away from me it was only early in the morning or late at night that I could earn anything to spend with my employer I did not mind that however as long as I could lay my hand upon the man I wanted they were very cunning though they must have thought that there was some chance of their being followed but they would never go out alone and never after nightfall during two weeks I drove behind them every day and never once saw them separate drubber himself was drunk half the time my intention was not to be caught napping I watched them late and early but never saw the ghost of a chance but I was not discouraged for something told me that the hour had almost come my only fear was that this thing in my chest might burst a little too soon and leave my work undone at last one evening I was driving up and down Torquay Terrace as the street was called presently some luggage was brought out and after a time drubber and Stangerson followed it and drove off I whipped up my horse and kept within sight of them feeling very ill at ease for I feared that they were going to shift their quarters at Euston station they got out and I left a boy to hold my horse Stangerson had just gone and there would not be another for some hours Stangerson seemed to be put out of that but drubber was rather pleased than otherwise I got so close to them in the bustle that I could hear every word that passed between them drubber said that he had a little business of his own to do and that if the other would wait for him he would soon rejoin him drubber answered that the matter was a delicate one and that he must go alone I could not catch what Stangerson said to that but the other burst out swearing and reminded him that he was nothing more than his paid servant and that he must not presume to dictate to him on that the secretary gave it up as a bad job and simply bargained with him that if he missed the last train he should rejoin him drubber answered that he would be back on the platform before 11 and made his way out of the station the moment for which I had waited so long had come at last I had my enemies within my power together they could protect each other but singly they were at my mercy I did not act however with undue precipitation my plans were already formed there is no satisfaction in vengeance when the offender has time to realize who it is that strikes him and why retribution has come upon him I had my plans arranged by which I should have the opportunity of making the man who had wronged me understand that his old sin had found him out it's chance that some days before a gentleman who had been engaged in looking over some houses in the Brixton Road but in the interval I had taken a molding of it and had a duplicate constructed by means of this I had access to at least one spot in this great city where I could rely upon being free from interruption how to get drubber to that house was the most difficult problem which I had now to solve he walked down the road and went into one or two liquor shops staying for nearly half an hour in the last of them he staggered in his walk and was evidently pretty well on there was a handsome just in front of me and he hailed it I followed it so close that the nose of my horse was within a yard of this driver the whole way we rattled across Waterloo Bridge and through miles of streets until to my astonishment we found ourselves back in the terrace in which he had boarded I could not imagine but I went on and pulled up on my cab a hundred yards or so from the house he entered it and his handsome drove away give me a glass of water if you please my mouth gets dry with the talking I handed him the glass and he drank down that's better he said well I waited for a quarter of an hour or more when suddenly next moment the door was flung open and two men appeared one of whom was Drebber and the other was a young chap whom I had never seen before this fellow had Drebber by the collar and when they came to the head of the steps he gave him a shove and a kick which sent him half across the road you hound he cried shaking his stick at him I'll teach you to insult that I think he would have thrashed Drebber with his cudgel only that the car staggered away down the road as fast as his legs would carry him he ran as far as the corner and then seeing my cab he hailed me and jumped in drive me to Halliday's private hotel said he when I had him fairly inside my cab my heart jumped so with joy that I feared less that this moment I drove along slowly weighing in my own mind what it was best to do I might take him right out into the country and here in some deserted lane have my last interview with him I had almost decided upon this when he solved the problem for me the craze for drink had seized him again and he ordered me to pull up outside the gin palace he went in leaving word that I should wait for him until closing time and when he came out he was so far gone that I knew the game was in my own hands don't imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood it would have only been rigid justice if I had done so but I could not bring myself to do it I had long determined that he should have a show for his life if he chose to take advantage of it among the many billets which I have filled in America during my wandering life as a keeper of the laboratory at York College one day the professor was lecturing on poisons and he showed his students some alkaloid,

As he called it which he had extracted from some South American arrow poison and which was so powerful that the least grain meant instant death I spotted the bottle in which this preparation was kept and when they were all gone I helped myself to a little of it from a very good dispenser so I worked this alkaloid into small soluble pills and each pill I put in a box with a similar pill made without the poison I determined at the time that when I had my chance my gentlemen should each have a draw of one of the boxes while I eat the pill that remained it would be quite as deadly and a good deal less noisy than firing across a handkerchief from that day I carried it with me and the time had now come when I was to use them it was nearer one than twelve and a wild bleak night blowing hard and raining in torrents dismal as it was outside I was glad within so glad that I could have shouted out from pure exultation if any of you gentlemen have ever pined for a thing and longed for it during twenty long years within your reach you would understand my feelings I lit a cigar and puffed at it to steady my nerves but my hands were trembling and my temples throbbing with excitement as I drove I could see old John Ferrier and sweet Lucy looking at me out of the darkness and smiling at me just as plain as I see you all in this room in this house until I pulled up at the house in the Brixton Road there was not a soul to be seen nor a sound to be heard except the dripping of the rain when I looked in at the window I found the drubber all huddled together in a drunken sleep I shook him by the arm it's time to get out I said all right cabbie said he without another word and followed me down the garden I had to walk beside him to keep him steady for he was still a little top heavy when we came to the door I opened it and led him into the front room I give you my word that all the way the father and the daughter were walking in front of us it's infernally dark said he stamping about we'll soon have a light striking a match and putting it to a wax candle which I had brought with me now Enoch Drebber I continued turning to him and holding the light to my own face who am I he gazed at me with bleared drunken eyes for a moment then I saw horror spring up in them and convulse his whole features which showed me that he knew me he staggered back with a livid face and I saw the perspiration break out upon his brow while his teeth chattered in his head at the sight I leaned my back against the door and laughed loud and long I had always known that vengeance would be sweet but I had never hoped for the contentment of soul which now possessed me you dog I said I have hunted you from Salt Lake City and you have always escaped me now at last your wanderings have come to an end for either you or I shall never see tomorrow's sunrise he shrunk still further away as I spoke and I could see on his face that he thought I was mad so I was for the time the pulses in my temple beat like sledgehammers and I believe I would have had a fit of some sort if he hadn't killed me what do you think of Lucy Ferrier now I cried locking the door and shaking the key in his face punishment had been slow in coming but it has overtaken you at last I saw his coward lips tremble as I spoke he would have begged for his life for he knew well that it was useless would you murder me he stammered there is no murder I answered who talks of murdering a mad dog what mercy had you upon my poor darling when you dragged her from her slaughtered father and bore her away to your accursed and shameless harem it was not I who killed her father he cried but it was you who broke her innocent heart I shrieked thrusting the box before him let the high god judge between us choose and eat there is death in one and life in the other I shall take what you leave let us see if there is justice upon the earth or if we are ruled by chance he cowered away with wild cries and prayers for mercy but I drew my knife and held it to his throat until he had obeyed me then I swallowed the other we stood facing one another in silence for a minute or more waiting to see which was to live and which was to die shall I ever forget the look which came over his face when the first warning pangs told him that the poison was in his system I laughed as I saw it and held loose his marriage ring in front of his eyes it was but for a moment for the action of the alkaloid is rapid a spasm of pain contorted his features he threw his hands out in front of him staggered and then with a hoarse cry fell heavily upon the floor I turned him over with my foot and placed my hand upon his heart there was no movement he was dead the blood had been streaming from my nose but I had taken no notice of it I don't know what it was that put it into my head to write upon the wall with it was some mischievous idea of setting the police upon a wrong track for I felt light-hearted and cheerful I remembered a German being found in New York with Rage written above him and it was argued at the time in the newspapers that the secret societies must have done it I guess that what puzzled the New Yorkers would puzzle the Londoners so I dipped my finger in my own blood and printed it on a convenient place on the wall then I walked down to my cab and found that there was nobody about and that the night was still very wild I had driven some distance when I put my hand into the pocket in which I usually kept Lucy's ring and found that it was not there I was thunderstruck at this for it was the only memento that I had of her thinking that I might have dropped it when I stooped over Drabber's body I drove back and leaving my cab in a side street I went boldly up to the house for I was ready to dare anything rather than to lose the ring when I arrived there I walked right into the arms of a police officer who was coming out and only managed to disarm his suspicions by pretending to be hopelessly drunk that was how Enoch Drabber came to his end all I had to do was to do as much for Stangerson and so pay off John Ferrier's debt I knew that he was staying at Halliday's private hotel and I hung about all day but he never came out I fancied that he suspected something when Drabber failed to put in an appearance he was cunning was Stangerson and always on his guard if he thought he could keep me off by staying indoors he was very much mistaken I soon found out which was the window of his bedroom and the next morning I took advantage of some ladders which were lying in the lane behind the hotel and so made my way into his room in the grey of dawn I woke him up and told him that the hour had come when he was to answer for the life he had taken so long before I described Drabber's death to him and I gave him the same choice of poisoned pills instead of grasping at the chance in self-defense I stabbed him to the heart it would have been the same in any case for Providence would never have allowed his guilty hand to pick out anything but the poison I have little more to say and it's as well for I'm about to be done up I went on cabbing it for a day or so intending to keep at it until I could save enough to take me back to America I was standing in the yard when a ragged youngster asked if there was a cabbie called Jefferson Hope and said that his cab was wanted by a gentleman at 221B Baker Street I went round suspecting no harm and the next thing I knew this young man here had the bracelets on my wrists and as neatly shackled as ever I saw in my life that's the whole of my story gentlemen you may consider me to be a murderer or an officer of justice as you are so thrilling had the man's narrative been and his manner was so impressive that we had sat silent and absorbed even the professional detectives blasé as they were in every detail of the crime appeared to be keenly interested in the man's story when he finished we sat for some minutes in the stillness which was only broken by the scratching of Lestrade's pencil and the finishing touches to his shorthand account there is only one point on which I should like a little more information Sherlock Holmes said at last who was your accomplice who came for the ring which I advertised the prisoner winked at my friend Joe Coastley I can tell my own secrets he said but I don't get other people into trouble which I wanted my friend volunteered to go and see I think you'll own him it smartly not a doubt of that said Holmes heartily now gentlemen the inspector remarked gravely the forms of the law must be complied with on Thursday the prisoner will be brought before the magistrates and your attendance will be required until then I will be responsible for him he rang the bell as he spoke and Jefferson Hope was led off by a couple of warders while my friend and I made our way out of the station and took a cab back to Baker Street chapter 7 the conclusion we had all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon the Thursday but when the Thursday came there was no occasion for our testimony and Jefferson Hope had been summoned before a tribunal where strict justice would be meted out to him on the very night after his capture the aneurysm burst and he was found in the morning stretched upon the floor of the cell with a placid smile upon his face as though he had been able in his dying moments to look back upon a useful life and on work well done Gregson and Lestrade will be wild about his death as we chatted it over the next evening where will their grand advertisement be now I don't see that they had very much to do with his capture I answered what you do in this world is a matter of no consequence returned my companion bitterly the question is what can you make people believe that you have done never mind he continued I cannot have missed the investigation for anything there has been no better case within my recollection simple as it was there were several most instructive points about it simple I ejaculated well really it can hardly be described as otherwise said Sherlock Holmes smiling at my surprise the proof of its my hand upon the criminal within three days that is true said I I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance in solving a problem of this sort the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards that is a very useful accomplishment and a very easy one but people do not practice it too much in the everyday affairs of life it becomes more useful to reason forwards and so the other comes to be neglected there are 50 who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically I confess said I that I do not quite follow you I hardly expected that you would let me see if I can make it clearer most people if you describe a train of events to them will tell you what the result would be they can put those events together in their minds and argue from them that something will come to pass there are few people however who if you told them a result would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result this power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backwards or analytically I understand said I now this was a case in which you were given the result and had to find everything else for yourself now let me endeavor to show you the different steps in my reasoning to begin at the beginning I approached the house as you know on foot and with my mind entirely free from all impressions I naturally began by examining the roadway and there as I have already a cab which I ascertained by inquiry must have been there during the night I satisfied myself that it was a cab and not a private carriage by the narrow gauge of the wheels the ordinary London growler is considerably less wide than a gentleman's brogham this was the first point gained I then walked slowly down the garden path which happened to be composed thoroughly suitable for taking impressions no doubt it appeared to you to be a mere trampled line of slush but to my trained eyes every mark upon its surface had a meaning there is no branch of detective science which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps happily I have always laid great stress upon it and much practice I saw the heavy footmarks of the constables but I saw also the track of the two men who had first passed through the garden it was easy to tell that they had been before the others because in places their marks had been entirely obliterated by the others coming up on top of them in this way my second link was formed which told me that the nocturnal visitors were two in numbers as I calculated from the length of his stride and the other fashionably dressed to judge from the small and elegant impression left by his boots on entering the house this last inference was confirmed my well-booted man lay before me the tall one then had done the murder if murder there was there was no wound upon the dead man's person but the agitated expression assured me that he had foreseen his fate before it came upon him men who die from heart disease or any sudden natural cause never by any chance exhibit agitations upon their features having sniffed the dead man's lips I detected a slightly sour smell and I came to the conclusion that he had poison forced upon him again I argued that it had been forced upon him from the hatred by the method of exclusion I had arrived at this result for no other hypothesis would meet the facts do not imagine that it was a very unheard of idea the forcible administration of poison is by no means a new thing in criminal annals the cases of Dalsky in Odessa and of Latourier in Montpellier will occur at once to any toxicologist and now came the great question as to the reason why robbery had not been the object of the murder for nothing was taken was it politics then or was it a woman there was the question which confronted me I was inclined from the first to the latter's supposition political assassins are only too glad to do their work and to fly this murder had on the contrary been done most deliberately to distract all over the room showing that he had been there all the time it must have been a private wrong and not a political one which called for such a methodical revenge when the inscription was discovered upon the wall I was more inclined than ever to my opinion the thing was too evidently a blind when the ring was found however it settled the question clearly the murderer was a blind or absent woman it was at this point that I asked Gregson whether he had inquired in his telegram to Cleveland as to any particular point in Mr.

Dreiber's former career he answered you remember in the negative I then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room which confirmed me in my opinion as to the murderer's height and furnished me with the details I had already come to the conclusion since there were no signs of a struggle that the blood which covered the floor had burst from the murderer's nose in his excitement I could perceive that the track of blood coincided with the track of his feet it is seldom that any man unless he is very full blooded breaks out in this way through emotion so I hazarded the opinion that the criminal was probably a robust and ruddy faced man who judged correctly having left the house I proceeded to do what Gregson had neglected I telegraphed to the head of the police at Cleveland limiting my inquiry to the circumstances connected with the marriage of Enoch Dreiber the answer was conclusive he told me that Dreiber had already applied for the protection of the law against an old rival in love named Jefferson Hope I held the clue to the mystery in my hand and all that remained was to secure the murderer I had already determined in my own mind that the man who had walked into the house with Dreiber was none other than the man who had driven the cab the marks in the road showed me that the horse had wandered on in a way which would have been impossible had there been anyone to suppose that any sane man would carry out a deliberate crime under the very eyes as it were of a third person who was sure to betray him lastly supposing one man wished to dog another through London what better means could he adopt than to turn cab driver all these considerations led me to the irresistible conclusion that Jefferson Hope was to be found among those he had been one there was no reason to believe that he had ceased to be on the contrary from his point of view any sudden change would be likely to draw attention to himself he would probably for a time at least continue to perform his duties there was no reason to suppose that he was going under an assumed name why should he change his name in a country where no one knew him and send them systematically to every cab proprietary in London until they ferreted out the man that I wanted how well they succeeded and how quickly I took advantage of it are still fresh in your recollection the murder of Stangerson was an incident which was entirely unexpected but which could hardly in any case have been prevented through it,

As you know I came into possession of the pills and experienced you see the whole thing is a chain of logical sequences without a break or flaw it is wonderful I cried your merits should be publicly recognized you should publish an account of the case if you won't I will for you you may do what you like doctor he answered see here he continued handing a paper over to me as an echo for the day and the paragraph to which he pointed was devoted to the case in question the public it said have lost a sensational treat through the sudden death of the man Hope who was suspected of the murder of Mr.

Enoch Drebber and of Mr.

Joseph Stangerson the details of the case will probably be never known now though we were informed upon good authority as a result of an old standing and romantic feud in which love and Mormonism bore apart it seems that both the victims belonged in their younger days to the latter day saints and Hope the deceased prisoner hails also from Salt Lake City if the case has had no other effect at least brings out in the most striking manner the efficiency of our detective police force and will serve as a lesson that they will do wisely to settle their feuds at home and not to carry them on to British soil it is an open secret that the credit of this smart capture belongs entirely to the well-known Scotland Yard officials Mr.

Lestrade and Gregson the man was apprehended it appears in the rooms of a certain Mr.

Sherlock Holmes who has himself as an amateur shown some talent in the detective line to attain to some degree of their skill it is expected that a testimonial of some sort will be presented to the two officers as a fitting recognition of their services didn't I tell you so when we started cried Sherlock Holmes with a laugh that's the result of all our study in Scarlet to get them a testimonial never mind I answered in the meantime you must make yourself contended by the consciousness of success like the Roman miser populus me sibilat at mihi plaudo ipse domi stimul ac numos contemplarin arca the public hiss at me but I cheer myself when in my own house I contemplate the coins in my strongbox this is the end of a study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thank you for listening

Reviews

Excellent! I have heard these stories read by you previously and having them all together is great! You have a wonderfully deep voice to listen to. It adds to the ambiance of the mystery! I never tire of listening. 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Every night I listen to this wondering if I will get to the end but I never do. 😁Thank you for making this awesome meditation!

Loved listening to the story in its entirety while I was cooking. No falling asleep this time! Thank you!

You have a very sultry deep voice that I can listen to for hours. Thank you for putting all of these in stories together!