The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

“Not a bite. I had no time to think of it.”

“And how have you succeeded?”

“Well.”

“You have a clue?”

“I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw shall not long
remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their own devilish trade-mark upon
them. It is well thought of!”

“What do you mean?”

He took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieces he squeezed out
the pips upon the table. Of these he took five and thrust them into an envelope.
On the inside of the flap he wrote “S. H. for J. O.” Then he sealed it and
addressed it to “Captain James Calhoun, Barque Lone Star, Savannah, Georgia.”

“That will await him when he enters port,” said he, chuckling. “It may give
him a sleepless night. He will find it as sure a precursor of his fate as Openshaw
did before him.”

“And who is this Captain Calhoun?”

“The leader of the gang. I shall have the others, but he first.”

“How did you trace it, then?”

He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with dates and
names.

“I have spent the whole day,” said he, “over Lloyd’s registers and files of the
old papers, following the future career of every vessel which touched at
Pondicherry in January and February in ’83. There were thirty-six ships of fair
tonnage which were reported there during those months. Of these, one, the Lone
Star, instantly attracted my attention, since, although it was reported as having
cleared from London, the name is that which is given to one of the states of the
Union.”

“Texas, I think.”

“I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the ship must have an
American origin.”

“What then?”

“I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the barque Lone Star
was there in January, ’85, my suspicion became a certainty. I then inquired as to
the vessels which lay at present in the port of London.”

“Yes?”

“The Lone Star had arrived here last week. I went down to the Albert Dock
and found that she had been taken down the river by the early tide this morning,
homeward bound to Savannah. I wired to Gravesend and learned that she had
passed some time ago, and as the wind is easterly I have no doubt that she is now
past the Goodwins and not very far from the Isle of Wight.”

“What will you do, then?”

“Oh, I have my hand upon him. He and the two mates, are as I learn, the only
native-born Americans in the ship. The others are Finns and Germans. I know,
also, that they were all three away from the ship last night. I had it from the
stevedore who has been loading their cargo. By the time that their sailing-ship
reaches Savannah the mail-boat will have carried this letter, and the cable will
have informed the police of Savannah that these three gentlemen are badly
wanted here upon a charge of murder.”

There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, and the
murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the orange pips which would
show them that another, as cunning and as resolute as themselves, was upon their
track. Very long and very severe were the equinoctial gales that year. We waited
long for news of the Lone Star of Savannah, but none ever reached us. We did at
last hear that somewhere far out in the Atlantic a shattered stern-post of a boat
was seen swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters “L. S.” carved upon
it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate of the Lone Star.

VI.

THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP

Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of the

Theological College of St. George’s, was much addicted to opium. The habit
grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at
college; for having read De Quincey’s description of his dreams and sensations,
he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the same
effects. He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is easier to attain
than to get rid of, and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an
object of mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives. I can see him now,
with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point pupils, all huddled in a
chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble man.

One night—it was in June, ’89—there came a ring to my bell, about the hour
when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the clock. I sat up in my chair,
and my wife laid her needle-work down in her lap and made a little face of
disappointment.

“A patient!” said she. “You’ll have to go out.”

I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day.

We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps upon the
linoleum. Our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in some dark-coloured stuff,
with a black veil, entered the room.

“You will excuse my calling so late,” she began, and then, suddenly losing her
self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms about my wife’s neck, and sobbed
upon her shoulder. “Oh, I’m in such trouble!” she cried; “I do so want a little
help.”

“Why,” said my wife, pulling up her veil, “it is Kate Whitney. How you
startled me, Kate! I had not an idea who you were when you came in.”

“I didn’t know what to do, so I came straight to you.” That was always the
way. Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to a lighthouse.

“It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine and water,
and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or should you rather that I sent

James off to bed?”

“Oh, no, no! I want the doctor’s advice and help, too. It’s about Isa. He has not
been home for two days. I am so frightened about him!”

It was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her husband’s trouble, to
me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend and school companion. We soothed
and comforted her by such words as we could find. Did she know where her
husband was? Was it possible that we could bring him back to her?

It seems that it was. She had the surest information that of late he had, when
the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the farthest east of the City.
Hitherto his orgies had always been confined to one day, and he had come back,
twitching and shattered, in the evening. But now the spell had been upon him
eight-and-forty hours, and he lay there, doubtless among the dregs of the docks,
breathing in the poison or sleeping off the effects. There he was to be found, she
was sure of it, at the Bar of Gold, in Upper Swandam Lane. But what was she to
do? How could she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place
and pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him?

There was the case, and of course there was but one way out of it. Might I not
escort her to this place? And then, as a second thought, why should she come at
all? I was Isa Whitney’s medical adviser, and as such I had influence over him. I
could manage it better if I were alone. I promised her on my word that I would
send him home in a cab within two hours if he were indeed at the address which
she had given me. And so in ten minutes I had left my armchair and cheery
sitting-room behind me, and was speeding eastward in a hansom on a strange
errand, as it seemed to me at the time, though the future only could show how
strange it was to be.

But there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my adventure. Upper
Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves which line the
north side of the river to the east of London Bridge. Between a slop-shop and a
gin-shop, approached by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like
the mouth of a cave, I found the den of which I was in search. Ordering my cab
to wait, I passed down the steps, worn hollow in the centre by the ceaseless tread
of drunken feet; and by the light of a flickering oil-lamp above the door I found
the latch and made my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with the
brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like the forecastle of an
emigrant ship.

Through the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying in strange
fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown back, and chins

pointing upward, with here and there a dark, lack-lustre eye turned upon the
newcomer. Out of the black shadows there glimmered little red circles of light,
now bright, now faint, as the burning poison waxed or waned in the bowls of the
metal pipes. The most lay silent, but some muttered to themselves, and others
talked together in a strange, low, monotonous voice, their conversation coming
in gushes, and then suddenly tailing off into silence, each mumbling out his own
thoughts and paying little heed to the words of his neighbour. At the farther end
was a small brazier of burning charcoal, beside which on a three-legged wooden
stool there sat a tall, thin old man, with his jaw resting upon his two fists, and his
elbows upon his knees, staring into the fire.

As I entered, a sallow Malay attendant had hurried up with a pipe for me and a
supply of the drug, beckoning me to an empty berth.

“Thank you. I have not come to stay,” said I. “There is a friend of mine here,
Mr. Isa Whitney, and I wish to speak with him.”

There was a movement and an exclamation from my right, and peering
through the gloom, I saw Whitney, pale, haggard, and unkempt, staring out at
me.

“My God! It’s Watson,” said he. He was in a pitiable state of reaction, with
every nerve in a twitter. “I say, Watson, what o’clock is it?”

“Nearly eleven.”

“Of what day?”

“Of Friday, June 19th.”

“Good heavens! I thought it was Wednesday. It is Wednesday. What d’you
want to frighten a chap for?” He sank his face onto his arms and began to sob in
a high treble key.

“I tell you that it is Friday, man. Your wife has been waiting this two days for
you. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

“So I am. But you’ve got mixed, Watson, for I have only been here a few
hours, three pipes, four pipes—I forget how many. But I’ll go home with you. I
wouldn’t frighten Kate—poor little Kate. Give me your hand! Have you a cab?”

“Yes, I have one waiting.”

“Then I shall go in it. But I must owe something. Find what I owe, Watson. I
am all off colour. I can do nothing for myself.”

I walked down the narrow passage between the double row of sleepers,
holding my breath to keep out the vile, stupefying fumes of the drug, and
looking about for the manager. As I passed the tall man who sat by the brazier I

felt a sudden pluck at my skirt, and a low voice whispered, “Walk past me, and
then look back at me.” The words fell quite distinctly upon my ear. I glanced
down. They could only have come from the old man at my side, and yet he sat
now as absorbed as ever, very thin, very wrinkled, bent with age, an opium pipe
dangling down from between his knees, as though it had dropped in sheer
lassitude from his fingers. I took two steps forward and looked back. It took all
my self-control to prevent me from breaking out into a cry of astonishment. He
had turned his back so that none could see him but I. His form had filled out, his
wrinkles were gone, the dull eyes had regained their fire, and there, sitting by the
fire and grinning at my surprise, was none other than Sherlock Holmes. He made
a slight motion to me to approach him, and instantly, as he turned his face half
round to the company once more, subsided into a doddering, loose-lipped
senility.

“Holmes!” I whispered, “what on earth are you doing in this den?”

“As low as you can,” he answered; “I have excellent ears. If you would have
the great kindness to get rid of that sottish friend of yours I should be
exceedingly glad to have a little talk with you.”

“I have a cab outside.”

“Then pray send him home in it. You may safely trust him, for he appears to
be too limp to get into any mischief. I should recommend you also to send a note
by the cabman to your wife to say that you have thrown in your lot with me. If
you will wait outside, I shall be with you in five minutes.”

It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes’ requests, for they were
always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with such a quiet air of mastery.
I felt, however, that when Whitney was once confined in the cab my mission was
practically accomplished; and for the rest, I could not wish anything better than
to be associated with my friend in one of those singular adventures which were
the normal condition of his existence. In a few minutes I had written my note,
paid Whitney’s bill, led him out to the cab, and seen him driven through the
darkness. In a very short time a decrepit figure had emerged from the opium den,
and I was walking down the street with Sherlock Holmes. For two streets he
shuffled along with a bent back and an uncertain foot. Then, glancing quickly
round, he straightened himself out and burst into a hearty fit of laughter.

“I suppose, Watson,” said he, “that you imagine that I have added opium-
smoking to cocaine injections, and all the other little weaknesses on which you
have favoured me with your medical views.”

“I was certainly surprised to find you there.”

“But not more so than I to find you.”

“I came to find a friend.”

“And I to find an enemy.”

“An enemy?”

“Yes; one of my natural enemies, or, shall I say, my natural prey. Briefly,
Watson, I am in the midst of a very remarkable inquiry, and I have hoped to find
a clue in the incoherent ramblings of these sots, as I have done before now. Had I
been recognised in that den my life would not have been worth an hour’s
purchase; for I have used it before now for my own purposes, and the rascally
Lascar who runs it has sworn to have vengeance upon me. There is a trap-door at
the back of that building, near the corner of Paul’s Wharf, which could tell some
strange tales of what has passed through it upon the moonless nights.”

“What! You do not mean bodies?”

“Ay, bodies, Watson. We should be rich men if we had £ 1000 for every poor
devil who has been done to death in that den. It is the vilest murder-trap on the
whole riverside, and I fear that Neville St. Clair has entered it never to leave it
more. But our trap should be here.” He put his two forefingers between his teeth
and whistled shrilly—a signal which was answered by a similar whistle from the
distance, followed shortly by the rattle of wheels and the clink of horses’ hoofs.

“Now, Watson,” said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through the gloom,
throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side lanterns. “You’ll
come with me, won’t you?”

“If I can be of use.”

“Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so. My
room at The Cedars is a double-bedded one.”

“The Cedars?”

“Yes; that is Mr. St. Clair’s house. I am staying there while I conduct the
inquiry.”

“Where is it, then?”

“Near Lee, in Kent. We have a seven-mile drive before us.”

“But I am all in the dark.”

“Of course you are. You’ll know all about it presently. Jump up here. All right,
John; we shall not need you. Here’s half a crown. Look out for me to-morrow,
about eleven. Give her her head. So long, then!”

He flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away through the endless

succession of sombre and deserted streets, which widened gradually, until we
were flying across a broad balustraded bridge, with the murky river flowing
sluggishly beneath us. Beyond lay another dull wilderness of bricks and mortar,
its silence broken only by the heavy, regular footfall of the policeman, or the
songs and shouts of some belated party of revellers. A dull wrack was drifting
slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through
the rifts of the clouds. Holmes drove in silence, with his head sunk upon his
breast, and the air of a man who is lost in thought, while I sat beside him, curious
to learn what this new quest might be which seemed to tax his powers so sorely,
and yet afraid to break in upon the current of his thoughts. We had driven several
miles, and were beginning to get to the fringe of the belt of suburban villas,
when he shook himself, shrugged his shoulders, and lit up his pipe with the air of
a man who has satisfied himself that he is acting for the best.

“You have a grand gift of silence, Watson,” said he. “It makes you quite
invaluable as a companion. ’Pon my word, it is a great thing for me to have
someone to talk to, for my own thoughts are not over-pleasant. I was wondering
what I should say to this dear little woman to-night when she meets me at the
door.”

“You forget that I know nothing about it.”

“I shall just have time to tell you the facts of the case before we get to Lee. It
seems absurdly simple, and yet, somehow I can get nothing to go upon. There’s
plenty of thread, no doubt, but I can’t get the end of it into my hand. Now, I’ll
state the case clearly and concisely to you, Watson, and maybe you can see a
spark where all is dark to me.”

“Proceed, then.”

“Some years ago—to be definite, in May, 1884—there came to Lee a
gentleman, Neville St. Clair by name, who appeared to have plenty of money. He
took a large villa, laid out the grounds very nicely, and lived generally in good
style. By degrees he made friends in the neighbourhood, and in 1887 he married
the daughter of a local brewer, by whom he now has two children. He had no
occupation, but was interested in several companies and went into town as a rule
in the morning, returning by the 5:14 from Cannon Street every night. Mr. St.
Clair is now thirty-seven years of age, is a man of temperate habits, a good
husband, a very affectionate father, and a man who is popular with all who know
him. I may add that his whole debts at the present moment, as far as we have
been able to ascertain, amount to £ 88 10s., while he has £ 220 standing to his
credit in the Capital and Counties Bank. There is no reason, therefore, to think
that money troubles have been weighing upon his mind.

“Last Monday Mr. Neville St. Clair went into town rather earlier than usual,
remarking before he started that he had two important commissions to perform,
and that he would bring his little boy home a box of bricks. Now, by the merest
chance, his wife received a telegram upon this same Monday, very shortly after
his departure, to the effect that a small parcel of considerable value which she
had been expecting was waiting for her at the offices of the Aberdeen Shipping
Company. Now, if you are well up in your London, you will know that the office
of the company is in Fresno Street, which branches out of Upper Swandam
Lane, where you found me to-night. Mrs. St. Clair had her lunch, started for the
City, did some shopping, proceeded to the company’s office, got her packet, and
found herself at exactly 4:35 walking through Swandam Lane on her way back
to the station. Have you followed me so far?”

“It is very clear.”

“If you remember, Monday was an exceedingly hot day, and Mrs. St. Clair
walked slowly, glancing about in the hope of seeing a cab, as she did not like the
neighbourhood in which she found herself. While she was walking in this way
down Swandam Lane, she suddenly heard an ejaculation or cry, and was struck
cold to see her husband looking down at her and, as it seemed to her, beckoning
to her from a second-floor window. The window was open, and she distinctly
saw his face, which she describes as being terribly agitated. He waved his hands
frantically to her, and then vanished from the window so suddenly that it seemed
to her that he had been plucked back by some irresistible force from behind. One
singular point which struck her quick feminine eye was that although he wore
some dark coat, such as he had started to town in, he had on neither collar nor
necktie.

“Convinced that something was amiss with him, she rushed down the steps—
for the house was none other than the opium den in which you found me to-night
—and running through the front room she attempted to ascend the stairs which
led to the first floor. At the foot of the stairs, however, she met this Lascar
scoundrel of whom I have spoken, who thrust her back and, aided by a Dane,
who acts as assistant there, pushed her out into the street. Filled with the most
maddening doubts and fears, she rushed down the lane and, by rare good-
fortune, met in Fresno Street a number of constables with an inspector, all on
their way to their beat. The inspector and two men accompanied her back, and in
spite of the continued resistance of the proprietor, they made their way to the
room in which Mr. St. Clair had last been seen. There was no sign of him there.
In fact, in the whole of that floor there was no one to be found save a crippled
wretch of hideous aspect, who, it seems, made his home there. Both he and the

Lascar stoutly swore that no one else had been in the front room during the
afternoon. So determined was their denial that the inspector was staggered, and
had almost come to believe that Mrs. St. Clair had been deluded when, with a
cry, she sprang at a small deal box which lay upon the table and tore the lid from
it. Out there fell a cascade of children’s bricks. It was the toy which he had
promised to bring home.

“This discovery, and the evident confusion which the cripple showed, made
the inspector realise that the matter was serious. The rooms were carefully
examined, and results all pointed to an abominable crime. The front room was
plainly furnished as a sitting-room and led into a small bedroom, which looked
out upon the back of one of the wharves. Between the wharf and the bedroom
window is a narrow strip, which is dry at low tide but is covered at high tide with
at least four and a half feet of water. The bedroom window was a broad one and
opened from below. On examination traces of blood were to be seen upon the
windowsill, and several scattered drops were visible upon the wooden floor of
the bedroom. Thrust away behind a curtain in the front room were all the clothes
of Mr. Neville St. Clair, with the exception of his coat. His boots, his socks, his
hat, and his watch—all were there. There were no signs of violence upon any of
these garments, and there were no other traces of Mr. Neville St. Clair. Out of
the window he must apparently have gone for no other exit could be discovered,
and the ominous bloodstains upon the sill gave little promise that he could save
himself by swimming, for the tide was at its very highest at the moment of the
tragedy.

“And now as to the villains who seemed to be immediately implicated in the
matter. The Lascar was known to be a man of the vilest antecedents, but as, by
Mrs. St. Clair’s story, he was known to have been at the foot of the stair within a
very few seconds of her husband’s appearance at the window, he could hardly
have been more than an accessory to the crime. His defence was one of absolute
ignorance, and he protested that he had no knowledge as to the doings of Hugh
Boone, his lodger, and that he could not account in any way for the presence of
the missing gentleman’s clothes.

“So much for the Lascar manager. Now for the sinister cripple who lives upon
the second floor of the opium den, and who was certainly the last human being
whose eyes rested upon Neville St. Clair. His name is Hugh Boone, and his
hideous face is one which is familiar to every man who goes much to the City.
He is a professional beggar, though in order to avoid the police regulations he
pretends to a small trade in wax vestas. Some little distance down Threadneedle
Street, upon the left-hand side, there is, as you may have remarked, a small angle

in the wall. Here it is that this creature takes his daily seat, cross-legged with his
tiny stock of matches on his lap, and as he is a piteous spectacle a small rain of
charity descends into the greasy leather cap which lies upon the pavement beside
him. I have watched the fellow more than once before ever I thought of making
his professional acquaintance, and I have been surprised at the harvest which he
has reaped in a short time. His appearance, you see, is so remarkable that no one
can pass him without observing him. A shock of orange hair, a pale face
disfigured by a horrible scar, which, by its contraction, has turned up the outer
edge of his upper lip, a bulldog chin, and a pair of very penetrating dark eyes,
which present a singular contrast to the colour of his hair, all mark him out from
amid the common crowd of mendicants and so, too, does his wit, for he is ever
ready with a reply to any piece of chaff which may be thrown at him by the
passers-by. This is the man whom we now learn to have been the lodger at the
opium den, and to have been the last man to see the gentleman of whom we are
in quest.”

“But a cripple!” said I. “What could he have done single-handed against a
man in the prime of life?”

“He is a cripple in the sense that he walks with a limp; but in other respects he
appears to be a powerful and well-nurtured man. Surely your medical experience
would tell you, Watson, that weakness in one limb is often compensated for by
exceptional strength in the others.”

“Pray continue your narrative.”

“Mrs. St. Clair had fainted at the sight of the blood upon the window, and she
was escorted home in a cab by the police, as her presence could be of no help to
them in their investigations. Inspector Barton, who had charge of the case, made
a very careful examination of the premises, but without finding anything which
threw any light upon the matter. One mistake had been made in not arresting
Boone instantly, as he was allowed some few minutes during which he might
have communicated with his friend the Lascar, but this fault was soon remedied,
and he was seized and searched, without anything being found which could
incriminate him. There were, it is true, some blood-stains upon his right shirt-
sleeve, but he pointed to his ring-finger, which had been cut near the nail, and
explained that the bleeding came from there, adding that he had been to the
window not long before, and that the stains which had been observed there came
doubtless from the same source. He denied strenuously having ever seen Mr.
Neville St. Clair and swore that the presence of the clothes in his room was as
much a mystery to him as to the police. As to Mrs. St. Clair’s assertion that she
had actually seen her husband at the window, he declared that she must have

been either mad or dreaming. He was removed, loudly protesting, to the police-
station, while the inspector remained upon the premises in the hope that the
ebbing tide might afford some fresh clue.

“And it did, though they hardly found upon the mud-bank what they had
feared to find. It was Neville St. Clair’s coat, and not Neville St. Clair, which lay
uncovered as the tide receded. And what do you think they found in the
pockets?”

“I cannot imagine.”

“No, I don’t think you would guess. Every pocket stuffed with pennies and
half-pennies—421 pennies and 270 half-pennies. It was no wonder that it had
not been swept away by the tide. But a human body is a different matter. There is
a fierce eddy between the wharf and the house. It seemed likely enough that the
weighted coat had remained when the stripped body had been sucked away into
the river.”

“But I understand that all the other clothes were found in the room. Would the
body be dressed in a coat alone?”

“No, sir, but the facts might be met speciously enough. Suppose that this man
Boone had thrust Neville St. Clair through the window, there is no human eye
which could have seen the deed. What would he do then? It would of course
instantly strike him that he must get rid of the tell-tale garments. He would seize
the coat, then, and be in the act of throwing it out, when it would occur to him
that it would swim and not sink. He has little time, for he has heard the scuffle
downstairs when the wife tried to force her way up, and perhaps he has already
heard from his Lascar confederate that the police are hurrying up the street.
There is not an instant to be lost. He rushes to some secret hoard, where he has
accumulated the fruits of his beggary, and he stuffs all the coins upon which he
can lay his hands into the pockets to make sure of the coat’s sinking. He throws
it out, and would have done the same with the other garments had not he heard
the rush of steps below, and only just had time to close the window when the
police appeared.”

“It certainly sounds feasible.”

“Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a better. Boone, as I
have told you, was arrested and taken to the station, but it could not be shown
that there had ever before been anything against him. He had for years been
known as a professional beggar, but his life appeared to have been a very quiet
and innocent one. There the matter stands at present, and the questions which
have to be solved—what Neville St. Clair was doing in the opium den, what

happened to him when there, where is he now, and what Hugh Boone had to do
with his disappearance—are all as far from a solution as ever. I confess that I
cannot recall any case within my experience which looked at the first glance so
simple and yet which presented such difficulties.”

While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of events, we
had been whirling through the outskirts of the great town until the last straggling
houses had been left behind, and we rattled along with a country hedge upon
either side of us. Just as he finished, however, we drove through two scattered
villages, where a few lights still glimmered in the windows.

“We are on the outskirts of Lee,” said my companion. “We have touched on
three English counties in our short drive, starting in Middlesex, passing over an
angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent. See that light among the trees? That is The
Cedars, and beside that lamp sits a woman whose anxious ears have already, I
have little doubt, caught the clink of our horse’s feet.”

“But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street?” I asked.

“Because there are many inquiries which must be made out here. Mrs. St.
Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and you may rest assured
that she will have nothing but a welcome for my friend and colleague. I hate to
meet her, Watson, when I have no news of her husband. Here we are. Whoa,
there, whoa!”

We had pulled up in front of a large villa which stood within its own grounds.
A stable-boy had run out to the horse’s head, and springing down, I followed
Holmes up the small, winding gravel-drive which led to the house. As we
approached, the door flew open, and a little blonde woman stood in the opening,
clad in some sort of light mousseline de soie, with a touch of fluffy pink chiffon
at her neck and wrists. She stood with her figure outlined against the flood of
light, one hand upon the door, one half-raised in her eagerness, her body slightly
bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing
question.

“Well?” she cried, “well?” And then, seeing that there were two of us, she
gave a cry of hope which sank into a groan as she saw that my companion shook
his head and shrugged his shoulders.

“No good news?”

“None.”

“No bad?”

“No.”

“Thank God for that. But come in. You must be weary, for you have had a
long day.”

“This is my friend, Dr. Watson. He has been of most vital use to me in several
of my cases, and a lucky chance has made it possible for me to bring him out and
associate him with this investigation.”

“I am delighted to see you,” said she, pressing my hand warmly. “You will, I
am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our arrangements, when you
consider the blow which has come so suddenly upon us.”

“My dear madam,” said I, “I am an old campaigner, and if I were not I can
very well see that no apology is needed. If I can be of any assistance, either to
you or to my friend here, I shall be indeed happy.”

“Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said the lady as we entered a well-lit dining-
room, upon the table of which a cold supper had been laid out, “I should very
much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to which I beg that you will
give a plain answer.”

“Certainly, madam.”

“Do not trouble about my feelings. I am not hysterical, nor given to fainting. I
simply wish to hear your real, real opinion.”

“Upon what point?”

“In your heart of hearts, do you think that Neville is alive?”

Sherlock Holmes seemed to be embarrassed by the question. “Frankly, now!”
she repeated, standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at him as he leaned
back in a basket-chair.

“Frankly, then, madam, I do not.”

“You think that he is dead?”

“I do.”

“Murdered?”

“I don’t say that. Perhaps.”

“And on what day did he meet his death?”

“On Monday.”

“Then perhaps, Mr. Holmes, you will be good enough to explain how it is that
I have received a letter from him to-day.”

Sherlock Holmes sprang out of his chair as if he had been galvanised.

“What!” he roared.

“Yes, to-day.” She stood smiling, holding up a little slip of paper in the air.

“May I see it?”

“Certainly.”

He snatched it from her in his eagerness, and smoothing it out upon the table
he drew over the lamp and examined it intently. I had left my chair and was
gazing at it over his shoulder. The envelope was a very coarse one and was
stamped with the Gravesend postmark and with the date of that very day, or
rather of the day before, for it was considerably after midnight.

“Coarse writing,” murmured Holmes. “Surely this is not your husband’s
writing, madam.”

“No, but the enclosure is.”

“I perceive also that whoever addressed the envelope had to go and inquire as
to the address.”

“How can you tell that?”

“The name, you see, is in perfectly black ink, which has dried itself. The rest
is of the greyish colour, which shows that blotting-paper has been used. If it had
been written straight off, and then blotted, none would be of a deep black shade.
This man has written the name, and there has then been a pause before he wrote
the address, which can only mean that he was not familiar with it. It is, of course,
a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles. Let us now see the letter. Ha!
there has been an enclosure here!”

“Yes, there was a ring. His signet-ring.”

“And you are sure that this is your husband’s hand?”

“One of his hands.”

“One?”

“His hand when he wrote hurriedly. It is very unlike his usual writing, and yet
I know it well.”

“‘Dearest do not be frightened. All will come well. There is a huge error
which it may take some little time to rectify. Wait in patience.—NEVILLE.’
Written in pencil upon the fly-leaf of a book, octavo size, no water-mark. Hum!
Posted to-day in Gravesend by a man with a dirty thumb. Ha! And the flap has
been gummed, if I am not very much in error, by a person who had been
chewing tobacco. And you have no doubt that it is your husband’s hand,
madam?”

“None. Neville wrote those words.”

“And they were posted to-day at Gravesend. Well, Mrs. St. Clair, the clouds
lighten, though I should not venture to say that the danger is over.”

“But he must be alive, Mr. Holmes.”

“Unless this is a clever forgery to put us on the wrong scent. The ring, after
all, proves nothing. It may have been taken from him.”

“No, no; it is, it is his very own writing!”

“Very well. It may, however, have been written on Monday and only posted
to-day.”

“That is possible.”

“If so, much may have happened between.”

“Oh, you must not discourage me, Mr. Holmes. I know that all is well with
him. There is so keen a sympathy between us that I should know if evil came
upon him. On the very day that I saw him last he cut himself in the bedroom, and
yet I in the dining-room rushed upstairs instantly with the utmost certainty that
something had happened. Do you think that I would respond to such a trifle and
yet be ignorant of his death?”

“I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be
more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner. And in this letter
you certainly have a very strong piece of evidence to corroborate your view. But
if your husband is alive and able to write letters, why should he remain away
from you?”

“I cannot imagine. It is unthinkable.”

“And on Monday he made no remarks before leaving you?”

“No.”

“And you were surprised to see him in Swandam Lane?”

“Very much so.”

“Was the window open?”

“Yes.”

“Then he might have called to you?”

“He might.”

“He only, as I understand, gave an inarticulate cry?”

“Yes.”

“A call for help, you thought?”

“Yes. He waved his hands.”

“But it might have been a cry of surprise. Astonishment at the unexpected
sight of you might cause him to throw up his hands?”

“It is possible.”

“And you thought he was pulled back?”

“He disappeared so suddenly.”

“He might have leaped back. You did not see anyone else in the room?”

“No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and the Lascar was
at the foot of the stairs.”

“Quite so. Your husband, as far as you could see, had his ordinary clothes
on?”

“But without his collar or tie. I distinctly saw his bare throat.”

“Had he ever spoken of Swandam Lane?”

“Never.”

“Had he ever showed any signs of having taken opium?”

“Never.”

“Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair. Those are the principal points about which I
wished to be absolutely clear. We shall now have a little supper and then retire,
for we may have a very busy day to-morrow.”

A large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our disposal,
and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary after my night of
adventure. Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, who, when he had an
unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even for a week,
without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts, looking at it from every point
of view until he had either fathomed it or convinced himself that his data were
insufficient. It was soon evident to me that he was now preparing for an all-night
sitting. He took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown,
and then wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and cushions
from the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a sort of Eastern divan,
upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with an ounce of shag tobacco and
a box of matches laid out in front of him. In the dim light of the lamp I saw him
sitting there, an old briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the
corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless,
with the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline features. So he sat as I
dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake
up, and I found the summer sun shining into the apartment. The pipe was still
between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the room was full of a dense

tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of shag which I had seen upon
the previous night.

“Awake, Watson?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Game for a morning drive?”

“Certainly.”

“Then dress. No one is stirring yet, but I know where the stable-boy sleeps,
and we shall soon have the trap out.” He chuckled to himself as he spoke, his
eyes twinkled, and he seemed a different man to the sombre thinker of the
previous night.

As I dressed I glanced at my watch. It was no wonder that no one was stirring.
It was twenty-five minutes past four. I had hardly finished when Holmes
returned with the news that the boy was putting in the horse.

“I want to test a little theory of mine,” said he, pulling on his boots. “I think,
Watson, that you are now standing in the presence of one of the most absolute
fools in Europe. I deserve to be kicked from here to Charing Cross. But I think I
have the key of the affair now.”

“And where is it?” I asked, smiling.

“In the bathroom,” he answered. “Oh, yes, I am not joking,” he continued,
seeing my look of incredulity. “I have just been there, and I have taken it out,
and I have got it in this Gladstone bag. Come on, my boy, and we shall see
whether it will not fit the lock.”

We made our way downstairs as quietly as possible, and out into the bright
morning sunshine. In the road stood our horse and trap, with the half-clad stable-
boy waiting at the head. We both sprang in, and away we dashed down the
London Road. A few country carts were stirring, bearing in vegetables to the
metropolis, but the lines of villas on either side were as silent and lifeless as
some city in a dream.

“It has been in some points a singular case,” said Holmes, flicking the horse
on into a gallop. “I confess that I have been as blind as a mole, but it is better to
learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.”

In town the earliest risers were just beginning to look sleepily from their
windows as we drove through the streets of the Surrey side. Passing down the
Waterloo Bridge Road we crossed over the river, and dashing up Wellington
Street wheeled sharply to the right and found ourselves in Bow Street. Sherlock
Holmes was well known to the force, and the two constables at the door saluted

him. One of them held the horse’s head while the other led us in.

“Who is on duty?” asked Holmes.

“Inspector Bradstreet, sir.”

“Ah, Bradstreet, how are you?” A tall, stout official had come down the stone-
flagged passage, in a peaked cap and frogged jacket. “I wish to have a quiet
word with you, Bradstreet.”

“Certainly, Mr. Holmes. Step into my room here.”

It was a small, office-like room, with a huge ledger upon the table, and a
telephone projecting from the wall. The inspector sat down at his desk.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes?”

“I called about that beggarman, Boone—the one who was charged with being
concerned in the disappearance of Mr. Neville St. Clair, of Lee.”

“Yes. He was brought up and remanded for further inquiries.”

“So I heard. You have him here?”

“In the cells.”

“Is he quiet?”

“Oh, he gives no trouble. But he is a dirty scoundrel.”

“Dirty?”

“Yes, it is all we can do to make him wash his hands, and his face is as black
as a tinker’s. Well, when once his case has been settled, he will have a regular
prison bath; and I think, if you saw him, you would agree with me that he needed
it.”

“I should like to see him very much.”

“Would you? That is easily done. Come this way. You can leave your bag.”

“No, I think that I’ll take it.”

“Very good. Come this way, if you please.” He led us down a passage, opened
a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and brought us to a whitewashed
corridor with a line of doors on each side.

“The third on the right is his,” said the inspector. “Here it is!” He quietly shot
back a panel in the upper part of the door and glanced through.

“He is asleep,” said he. “You can see him very well.”

We both put our eyes to the grating. The prisoner lay with his face towards us,
in a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and heavily. He was a middle-sized man,
coarsely clad as became his calling, with a coloured shirt protruding through the

rent in his tattered coat. He was, as the inspector had said, extremely dirty, but
the grime which covered his face could not conceal its repulsive ugliness. A
broad wheal from an old scar ran right across it from eye to chin, and by its
contraction had turned up one side of the upper lip, so that three teeth were
exposed in a perpetual snarl. A shock of very bright red hair grew low over his
eyes and forehead.

“He’s a beauty, isn’t he?” said the inspector.

“He certainly needs a wash,” remarked Holmes. “I had an idea that he might,
and I took the liberty of bringing the tools with me.” He opened the Gladstone
bag as he spoke, and took out, to my astonishment, a very large bath-sponge.

“He! he! You are a funny one,” chuckled the inspector.

“Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very quietly, we
will soon make him cut a much more respectable figure.”

“Well, I don’t know why not,” said the inspector. “He doesn’t look a credit to
the Bow Street cells, does he?” He slipped his key into the lock, and we all very
quietly entered the cell. The sleeper half turned, and then settled down once
more into a deep slumber. Holmes stooped to the water-jug, moistened his
sponge, and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down the prisoner’s face.

“Let me introduce you,” he shouted, “to Mr. Neville St. Clair, of Lee, in the
county of Kent.”

Never in my life have I seen such a sight. The man’s face peeled off under the
sponge like the bark from a tree. Gone was the coarse brown tint! Gone, too, was
the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given
the repulsive sneer to the face! A twitch brought away the tangled red hair, and
there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale, sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-
haired and smooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes and staring about him with sleepy
bewilderment. Then suddenly realising the exposure, he broke into a scream and
threw himself down with his face to the pillow.

“Great heavens!” cried the inspector, “it is, indeed, the missing man. I know
him from the photograph.”

The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons himself to
his destiny. “Be it so,” said he. “And pray what am I charged with?”

“With making away with Mr. Neville St.— Oh, come, you can’t be charged
with that unless they make a case of attempted suicide of it,” said the inspector
with a grin. “Well, I have been twenty-seven years in the force, but this really
takes the cake.”

“If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime has been
committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally detained.”

“No crime, but a very great error has been committed,” said Holmes. “You
would have done better to have trusted your wife.”

“It was not the wife; it was the children,” groaned the prisoner. “God help me,
I would not have them ashamed of their father. My God! What an exposure!
What can I do?”

Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him kindly on
the shoulder.

“If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up,” said he, “of course
you can hardly avoid publicity. On the other hand, if you convince the police
authorities that there is no possible case against you, I do not know that there is
any reason that the details should find their way into the papers. Inspector
Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which you might tell us
and submit it to the proper authorities. The case would then never go into court
at all.”

“God bless you!” cried the prisoner passionately. “I would have endured
imprisonment, ay, even execution, rather than have left my miserable secret as a
family blot to my children.

“You are the first who have ever heard my story. My father was a
schoolmaster in Chesterfield, where I received an excellent education. I travelled
in my youth, took to the stage, and finally became a reporter on an evening paper
in London. One day my editor wished to have a series of articles upon begging
in the metropolis, and I volunteered to supply them. There was the point from
which all my adventures started. It was only by trying begging as an amateur
that I could get the facts upon which to base my articles. When an actor I had, of
course, learned all the secrets of making up, and had been famous in the green-
room for my skill. I took advantage now of my attainments. I painted my face,
and to make myself as pitiable as possible I made a good scar and fixed one side
of my lip in a twist by the aid of a small slip of flesh-coloured plaster. Then with
a red head of hair, and an appropriate dress, I took my station in the business part
of the city, ostensibly as a match-seller but really as a beggar. For seven hours I
plied my trade, and when I returned home in the evening I found to my surprise
that I had received no less than 26s. 4d.

“I wrote my articles and thought little more of the matter until, some time
later, I backed a bill for a friend and had a writ served upon me for £ 25. I was at
my wit’s end where to get the money, but a sudden idea came to me. I begged a

fortnight’s grace from the creditor, asked for a holiday from my employers, and
spent the time in begging in the City under my disguise. In ten days I had the
money and had paid the debt.

“Well, you can imagine how hard it was to settle down to arduous work at £ 2
a week when I knew that I could earn as much in a day by smearing my face
with a little paint, laying my cap on the ground, and sitting still. It was a long
fight between my pride and the money, but the dollars won at last, and I threw up
reporting and sat day after day in the corner which I had first chosen, inspiring
pity by my ghastly face and filling my pockets with coppers. Only one man
knew my secret. He was the keeper of a low den in which I used to lodge in
Swandam Lane, where I could every morning emerge as a squalid beggar and in
the evenings transform myself into a well-dressed man about town. This fellow,
a Lascar, was well paid by me for his rooms, so that I knew that my secret was
safe in his possession.

“Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums of money. I do
not mean that any beggar in the streets of London could earn £ 700 a year—
which is less than my average takings—but I had exceptional advantages in my
power of making up, and also in a facility of repartee, which improved by
practice and made me quite a recognised character in the City. All day a stream
of pennies, varied by silver, poured in upon me, and it was a very bad day in
which I failed to take £ 2.

“As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the country, and
eventually married, without anyone having a suspicion as to my real occupation.
My dear wife knew that I had business in the City. She little knew what.

“Last Monday I had finished for the day and was dressing in my room above
the opium den when I looked out of my window and saw, to my horror and
astonishment, that my wife was standing in the street, with her eyes fixed full
upon me. I gave a cry of surprise, threw up my arms to cover my face, and,
rushing to my confidant, the Lascar, entreated him to prevent anyone from
coming up to me. I heard her voice downstairs, but I knew that she could not
ascend. Swiftly I threw off my clothes, pulled on those of a beggar, and put on
my pigments and wig. Even a wife’s eyes could not pierce so complete a
disguise. But then it occurred to me that there might be a search in the room, and
that the clothes might betray me. I threw open the window, reopening by my
violence a small cut which I had inflicted upon myself in the bedroom that
morning. Then I seized my coat, which was weighted by the coppers which I had
just transferred to it from the leather bag in which I carried my takings. I hurled
it out of the window, and it disappeared into the Thames. The other clothes

would have followed, but at that moment there was a rush of constables up the
stair, and a few minutes after I found, rather, I confess, to my relief, that instead
of being identified as Mr. Neville St. Clair, I was arrested as his murderer.

“I do not know that there is anything else for me to explain. I was determined
to preserve my disguise as long as possible, and hence my preference for a dirty
face. Knowing that my wife would be terribly anxious, I slipped off my ring and
confided it to the Lascar at a moment when no constable was watching me,
together with a hurried scrawl, telling her that she had no cause to fear.”

“That note only reached her yesterday,” said Holmes.

“Good God! What a week she must have spent!”

“The police have watched this Lascar,” said Inspector Bradstreet, “and I can
quite understand that he might find it difficult to post a letter unobserved.
Probably he handed it to some sailor customer of his, who forgot all about it for
some days.”

“That was it,” said Holmes, nodding approvingly; “I have no doubt of it. But
have you never been prosecuted for begging?”

“Many times; but what was a fine to me?”

“It must stop here, however,” said Bradstreet. “If the police are to hush this
thing up, there must be no more of Hugh Boone.”

“I have sworn it by the most solemn oaths which a man can take.”

“In that case I think that it is probable that no further steps may be taken. But
if you are found again, then all must come out. I am sure, Mr. Holmes, that we
are very much indebted to you for having cleared the matter up. I wish I knew
how you reach your results.”

“I reached this one,” said my friend, “by sitting upon five pillows and
consuming an ounce of shag. I think, Watson, that if we drive to Baker Street we
shall just be in time for breakfast.”

VII.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE

I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning after

Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of the season. He
was lounging upon the sofa in a purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his
reach upon the right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly
studied, near at hand. Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and on the angle of
the back hung a very seedy and disreputable hard-felt hat, much the worse for
wear, and cracked in several places. A lens and a forceps lying upon the seat of
the chair suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner for the
purpose of examination.

“You are engaged,” said I; “perhaps I interrupt you.”

“Not at all. I am glad to have a friend with whom I can discuss my results.
The matter is a perfectly trivial one”—he jerked his thumb in the direction of the
old hat—“but there are points in connection with it which are not entirely devoid
of interest and even of instruction.”

I seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before his crackling
fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows were thick with the ice
crystals. “I suppose,” I remarked, “that, homely as it looks, this thing has some
deadly story linked on to it—that it is the clue which will guide you in the
solution of some mystery and the punishment of some crime.”

“No, no. No crime,” said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. “Only one of those
whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have four million human
beings all jostling each other within the space of a few square miles. Amid the
action and reaction of so dense a swarm of humanity, every possible combination
of events may be expected to take place, and many a little problem will be
presented which may be striking and bizarre without being criminal. We have
already had experience of such.”

“So much so,” I remarked, “that of the last six cases which I have added to my
notes, three have been entirely free of any legal crime.”

“Precisely. You allude to my attempt to recover the Irene Adler papers, to the

singular case of Miss Mary Sutherland, and to the adventure of the man with the
twisted lip. Well, I have no doubt that this small matter will fall into the same
innocent category. You know Peterson, the commissionaire?”

“Yes.”

“It is to him that this trophy belongs.”

“It is his hat.”

“No, no, he found it. Its owner is unknown. I beg that you will look upon it
not as a battered billycock but as an intellectual problem. And, first, as to how it
came here. It arrived upon Christmas morning, in company with a good fat
goose, which is, I have no doubt, roasting at this moment in front of Peterson’s
fire. The facts are these: about four o’clock on Christmas morning, Peterson,
who, as you know, is a very honest fellow, was returning from some small
jollification and was making his way homeward down Tottenham Court Road. In
front of him he saw, in the gaslight, a tallish man, walking with a slight stagger,
and carrying a white goose slung over his shoulder. As he reached the corner of
Goodge Street, a row broke out between this stranger and a little knot of roughs.
One of the latter knocked off the man’s hat, on which he raised his stick to
defend himself and, swinging it over his head, smashed the shop window behind
him. Peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from his assailants; but
the man, shocked at having broken the window, and seeing an official-looking
person in uniform rushing towards him, dropped his goose, took to his heels, and
vanished amid the labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of Tottenham
Court Road. The roughs had also fled at the appearance of Peterson, so that he
was left in possession of the field of battle, and also of the spoils of victory in the
shape of this battered hat and a most unimpeachable Christmas goose.”

“Which surely he restored to their owner?”

“My dear fellow, there lies the problem. It is true that ‘For Mrs. Henry Baker’
was printed upon a small card which was tied to the bird’s left leg, and it is also
true that the initials ‘H. B.’ are legible upon the lining of this hat, but as there are
some thousands of Bakers, and some hundreds of Henry Bakers in this city of
ours, it is not easy to restore lost property to any one of them.”

“What, then, did Peterson do?”

“He brought round both hat and goose to me on Christmas morning, knowing
that even the smallest problems are of interest to me. The goose we retained until
this morning, when there were signs that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be
well that it should be eaten without unnecessary delay. Its finder has carried it
off, therefore, to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose, while I continue to retain

the hat of the unknown gentleman who lost his Christmas dinner.”

“Did he not advertise?”

“No.”

“Then, what clue could you have as to his identity?”

“Only as much as we can deduce.”

“From his hat?”

“Precisely.”

“But you are joking. What can you gather from this old battered felt?”

“Here is my lens. You know my methods. What can you gather yourself as to
the individuality of the man who has worn this article?”

I took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather ruefully. It was
a very ordinary black hat of the usual round shape, hard and much the worse for
wear. The lining had been of red silk, but was a good deal discoloured. There
was no maker’s name; but, as Holmes had remarked, the initials “H. B.” were
scrawled upon one side. It was pierced in the brim for a hat-securer, but the
elastic was missing. For the rest, it was cracked, exceedingly dusty, and spotted
in several places, although there seemed to have been some attempt to hide the
discoloured patches by smearing them with ink.

“I can see nothing,” said I, handing it back to my friend.

“On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to
reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences.”

“Then, pray tell me what it is that you can infer from this hat?”

He picked it up and gazed at it in the peculiar introspective fashion which was
characteristic of him. “It is perhaps less suggestive than it might have been,” he
remarked, “and yet there are a few inferences which are very distinct, and a few
others which represent at least a strong balance of probability. That the man was
highly intellectual is of course obvious upon the face of it, and also that he was
fairly well-to-do within the last three years, although he has now fallen upon evil
days. He had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing to a moral
retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his fortunes, seems to
indicate some evil influence, probably drink, at work upon him. This may
account also for the obvious fact that his wife has ceased to love him.”

“My dear Holmes!”

“He has, however, retained some degree of self-respect,” he continued,
disregarding my remonstrance. “He is a man who leads a sedentary life, goes out

little, is out of training entirely, is middle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has
had cut within the last few days, and which he anoints with lime-cream. These
are the more patent facts which are to be deduced from his hat. Also, by the way,
that it is extremely improbable that he has gas laid on in his house.”

“You are certainly joking, Holmes.”

“Not in the least. Is it possible that even now, when I give you these results,
you are unable to see how they are attained?”

“I have no doubt that I am very stupid, but I must confess that I am unable to
follow you. For example, how did you deduce that this man was intellectual?”

For answer Holmes clapped the hat upon his head. It came right over the
forehead and settled upon the bridge of his nose. “It is a question of cubic
capacity,” said he; “a man with so large a brain must have something in it.”

“The decline of his fortunes, then?”

“This hat is three years old. These flat brims curled at the edge came in then.
It is a hat of the very best quality. Look at the band of ribbed silk and the
excellent lining. If this man could afford to buy so expensive a hat three years
ago, and has had no hat since, then he has assuredly gone down in the world.”

“Well, that is clear enough, certainly. But how about the foresight and the
moral retrogression?”

Sherlock Holmes laughed. “Here is the foresight,” said he putting his finger
upon the little disc and loop of the hat-securer. “They are never sold upon hats. If
this man ordered one, it is a sign of a certain amount of foresight, since he went
out of his way to take this precaution against the wind. But since we see that he
has broken the elastic and has not troubled to replace it, it is obvious that he has
less foresight now than formerly, which is a distinct proof of a weakening nature.
On the other hand, he has endeavoured to conceal some of these stains upon the
felt by daubing them with ink, which is a sign that he has not entirely lost his
self-respect.”

“Your reasoning is certainly plausible.”

“The further points, that he is middle-aged, that his hair is grizzled, that it has
been recently cut, and that he uses lime-cream, are all to be gathered from a
close examination of the lower part of the lining. The lens discloses a large
number of hair-ends, clean cut by the scissors of the barber. They all appear to be
adhesive, and there is a distinct odour of lime-cream. This dust, you will
observe, is not the gritty, grey dust of the street but the fluffy brown dust of the
house, showing that it has been hung up indoors most of the time, while the

marks of moisture upon the inside are proof positive that the wearer perspired
very freely, and could therefore, hardly be in the best of training.”

“But his wife—you said that she had ceased to love him.”

“This hat has not been brushed for weeks. When I see you, my dear Watson,
with a week’s accumulation of dust upon your hat, and when your wife allows
you to go out in such a state, I shall fear that you also have been unfortunate
enough to lose your wife’s affection.”

“But he might be a bachelor.”

“Nay, he was bringing home the goose as a peace-offering to his wife.
Remember the card upon the bird’s leg.”

“You have an answer to everything. But how on earth do you deduce that the
gas is not laid on in his house?”

“One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when I see no less
than five, I think that there can be little doubt that the individual must be brought
into frequent contact with burning tallow—walks upstairs at night probably with
his hat in one hand and a guttering candle in the other. Anyhow, he never got
tallow-stains from a gas-jet. Are you satisfied?”

“Well, it is very ingenious,” said I, laughing; “but since, as you said just now,
there has been no crime committed, and no harm done save the loss of a goose,
all this seems to be rather a waste of energy.”

Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew open,
and Peterson, the commissionaire, rushed into the apartment with flushed cheeks
and the face of a man who is dazed with astonishment.

“The goose, Mr. Holmes! The goose, sir!” he gasped.

“Eh? What of it, then? Has it returned to life and flapped off through the
kitchen window?” Holmes twisted himself round upon the sofa to get a fairer
view of the man’s excited face.

“See here, sir! See what my wife found in its crop!” He held out his hand and
displayed upon the centre of the palm a brilliantly scintillating blue stone, rather
smaller than a bean in size, but of such purity and radiance that it twinkled like
an electric point in the dark hollow of his hand.

Sherlock Holmes sat up with a whistle. “By Jove, Peterson!” said he, “this is
treasure trove indeed. I suppose you know what you have got?”

“A diamond, sir? A precious stone. It cuts into glass as though it were putty.”

“It’s more than a precious stone. It is the precious stone.”

“Not the Countess of Morcar’s blue carbuncle!” I ejaculated.

“Precisely so. I ought to know its size and shape, seeing that I have read the
advertisement about it in The Times every day lately. It is absolutely unique, and
its value can only be conjectured, but the reward offered of £ 1000 is certainly
not within a twentieth part of the market price.”

“A thousand pounds! Great Lord of mercy!” The commissionaire plumped
down into a chair and stared from one to the other of us.

“That is the reward, and I have reason to know that there are sentimental
considerations in the background which would induce the Countess to part with
half her fortune if she could but recover the gem.”

“It was lost, if I remember aright, at the Hotel Cosmopolitan,” I remarked.

“Precisely so, on December 22nd, just five days ago. John Horner, a plumber,
was accused of having abstracted it from the lady’s jewel-case. The evidence
against him was so strong that the case has been referred to the Assizes. I have
some account of the matter here, I believe.” He rummaged amid his newspapers,
glancing over the dates, until at last he smoothed one out, doubled it over, and
read the following paragraph:

“Hotel Cosmopolitan Jewel Robbery. John Horner, 26, plumber, was brought
up upon the charge of having upon the 22nd inst., abstracted from the jewel-case
of the Countess of Morcar the valuable gem known as the blue carbuncle. James
Ryder, upper-attendant at the hotel, gave his evidence to the effect that he had
shown Horner up to the dressing-room of the Countess of Morcar upon the day
of the robbery in order that he might solder the second bar of the grate, which
was loose. He had remained with Horner some little time, but had finally been
called away. On returning, he found that Horner had disappeared, that the bureau
had been forced open, and that the small morocco casket in which, as it
afterwards transpired, the Countess was accustomed to keep her jewel, was lying
empty upon the dressing-table. Ryder instantly gave the alarm, and Horner was
arrested the same evening; but the stone could not be found either upon his
person or in his rooms. Catherine Cusack, maid to the Countess, deposed to
having heard Ryder’s cry of dismay on discovering the robbery, and to having
rushed into the room, where she found matters as described by the last witness.
Inspector Bradstreet, B division, gave evidence as to the arrest of Horner, who
struggled frantically, and protested his innocence in the strongest terms.
Evidence of a previous conviction for robbery having been given against the
prisoner, the magistrate refused to deal summarily with the offence, but referred
it to the Assizes. Horner, who had shown signs of intense emotion during the

proceedings, fainted away at the conclusion and was carried out of court.”

“Hum! So much for the police-court,” said Holmes thoughtfully, tossing aside
the paper. “The question for us now to solve is the sequence of events leading
from a rifled jewel-case at one end to the crop of a goose in Tottenham Court
Road at the other. You see, Watson, our little deductions have suddenly assumed
a much more important and less innocent aspect. Here is the stone; the stone
came from the goose, and the goose came from Mr. Henry Baker, the gentleman
with the bad hat and all the other characteristics with which I have bored you. So
now we must set ourselves very seriously to finding this gentleman and
ascertaining what part he has played in this little mystery. To do this, we must try
the simplest means first, and these lie undoubtedly in an advertisement in all the
evening papers. If this fail, I shall have recourse to other methods.”

“What will you say?”

“Give me a pencil and that slip of paper. Now, then: ‘Found at the corner of
Goodge Street, a goose and a black felt hat. Mr. Henry Baker can have the same
by applying at 6:30 this evening at 221B, Baker Street.’ That is clear and
concise.”

“Very. But will he see it?”

“Well, he is sure to keep an eye on the papers, since, to a poor man, the loss
was a heavy one. He was clearly so scared by his mischance in breaking the
window and by the approach of Peterson that he thought of nothing but flight,
but since then he must have bitterly regretted the impulse which caused him to
drop his bird. Then, again, the introduction of his name will cause him to see it,
for everyone who knows him will direct his attention to it. Here you are,
Peterson, run down to the advertising agency and have this put in the evening
papers.”

“In which, sir?”

“Oh, in the Globe, Star, Pall Mall, St. James’s Gazette, Evening News,
Standard, Echo, and any others that occur to you.”

“Very well, sir. And this stone?”

“Ah, yes, I shall keep the stone. Thank you. And, I say, Peterson, just buy a
goose on your way back and leave it here with me, for we must have one to give
to this gentleman in place of the one which your family is now devouring.”

When the commissionaire had gone, Holmes took up the stone and held it
against the light. “It’s a bonny thing,” said he. “Just see how it glints and
sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They

are the devil’s pet baits. In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a
bloody deed. This stone is not yet twenty years old. It was found in the banks of
the Amoy River in southern China and is remarkable in having every
characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is blue in shade instead of ruby red. In
spite of its youth, it has already a sinister history. There have been two murders,
a vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about for the sake of
this forty-grain weight of crystallised charcoal. Who would think that so pretty a
toy would be a purveyor to the gallows and the prison? I’ll lock it up in my
strong box now and drop a line to the Countess to say that we have it.”

“Do you think that this man Horner is innocent?”

“I cannot tell.”

“Well, then, do you imagine that this other one, Henry Baker, had anything to
do with the matter?”

“It is, I think, much more likely that Henry Baker is an absolutely innocent
man, who had no idea that the bird which he was carrying was of considerably
more value than if it were made of solid gold. That, however, I shall determine
by a very simple test if we have an answer to our advertisement.”

“And you can do nothing until then?”

“Nothing.”

“In that case I shall continue my professional round. But I shall come back in
the evening at the hour you have mentioned, for I should like to see the solution
of so tangled a business.”

“Very glad to see you. I dine at seven. There is a woodcock, I believe. By the
way, in view of recent occurrences, perhaps I ought to ask Mrs. Hudson to
examine its crop.”

I had been delayed at a case, and it was a little after half-past six when I found
myself in Baker Street once more. As I approached the house I saw a tall man in
a Scotch bonnet with a coat which was buttoned up to his chin waiting outside in
the bright semicircle which was thrown from the fanlight. Just as I arrived the
door was opened, and we were shown up together to Holmes’ room.

“Mr. Henry Baker, I believe,” said he, rising from his armchair and greeting
his visitor with the easy air of geniality which he could so readily assume. “Pray
take this chair by the fire, Mr. Baker. It is a cold night, and I observe that your
circulation is more adapted for summer than for winter. Ah, Watson, you have
just come at the right time. Is that your hat, Mr. Baker?”

“Yes, sir, that is undoubtedly my hat.”

He was a large man with rounded shoulders, a massive head, and a broad,
intelligent face, sloping down to a pointed beard of grizzled brown. A touch of
red in nose and cheeks, with a slight tremor of his extended hand, recalled
Holmes’ surmise as to his habits. His rusty black frock-coat was buttoned right
up in front, with the collar turned up, and his lank wrists protruded from his
sleeves without a sign of cuff or shirt. He spoke in a slow staccato fashion,
choosing his words with care, and gave the impression generally of a man of
learning and letters who had had ill-usage at the hands of fortune.

“We have retained these things for some days,” said Holmes, “because we
expected to see an advertisement from you giving your address. I am at a loss to
know now why you did not advertise.”

Our visitor gave a rather shamefaced laugh. “Shillings have not been so
plentiful with me as they once were,” he remarked. “I had no doubt that the gang
of roughs who assaulted me had carried off both my hat and the bird. I did not
care to spend more money in a hopeless attempt at recovering them.”

“Very naturally. By the way, about the bird, we were compelled to eat it.”

“To eat it!” Our visitor half rose from his chair in his excitement.

“Yes, it would have been of no use to anyone had we not done so. But I
presume that this other goose upon the sideboard, which is about the same
weight and perfectly fresh, will answer your purpose equally well?”

“Oh, certainly, certainly,” answered Mr. Baker with a sigh of relief.

“Of course, we still have the feathers, legs, crop, and so on of your own bird,
so if you wish—”

The man burst into a hearty laugh. “They might be useful to me as relics of
my adventure,” said he, “but beyond that I can hardly see what use the disjecta
membra of my late acquaintance are going to be to me. No, sir, I think that, with
your permission, I will confine my attentions to the excellent bird which I
perceive upon the sideboard.”

Sherlock Holmes glanced sharply across at me with a slight shrug of his
shoulders.

“There is your hat, then, and there your bird,” said he. “By the way, would it
bore you to tell me where you got the other one from? I am somewhat of a fowl
fancier, and I have seldom seen a better grown goose.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Baker, who had risen and tucked his newly gained
property under his arm. “There are a few of us who frequent the Alpha Inn, near
the Museum—we are to be found in the Museum itself during the day, you

understand. This year our good host, Windigate by name, instituted a goose club,
by which, on consideration of some few pence every week, we were each to
receive a bird at Christmas. My pence were duly paid, and the rest is familiar to
you. I am much indebted to you, sir, for a Scotch bonnet is fitted neither to my
years nor my gravity.” With a comical pomposity of manner he bowed solemnly
to both of us and strode off upon his way.

“So much for Mr. Henry Baker,” said Holmes when he had closed the door
behind him. “It is quite certain that he knows nothing whatever about the matter.
Are you hungry, Watson?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then I suggest that we turn our dinner into a supper and follow up this clue
while it is still hot.”

“By all means.”

It was a bitter night, so we drew on our ulsters and wrapped cravats about our
throats. Outside, the stars were shining coldly in a cloudless sky, and the breath
of the passers-by blew out into smoke like so many pistol shots. Our footfalls
rang out crisply and loudly as we swung through the doctors’ quarter, Wimpole
Street, Harley Street, and so through Wigmore Street into Oxford Street. In a
quarter of an hour we were in Bloomsbury at the Alpha Inn, which is a small
public-house at the corner of one of the streets which runs down into Holborn.
Holmes pushed open the door of the private bar and ordered two glasses of beer
from the ruddy-faced, white-aproned landlord.

“Your beer should be excellent if it is as good as your geese,” said he.

“My geese!” The man seemed surprised.

“Yes. I was speaking only half an hour ago to Mr. Henry Baker, who was a
member of your goose club.”

“Ah! yes, I see. But you see, sir, them’s not our geese.”

“Indeed! Whose, then?”

“Well, I got the two dozen from a salesman in Covent Garden.”

“Indeed? I know some of them. Which was it?”

“Breckinridge is his name.”

“Ah! I don’t know him. Well, here’s your good health landlord, and prosperity
to your house. Good-night.”

“Now for Mr. Breckinridge,” he continued, buttoning up his coat as we came
out into the frosty air. “Remember, Watson that though we have so homely a

thing as a goose at one end of this chain, we have at the other a man who will
certainly get seven years’ penal servitude unless we can establish his innocence.
It is possible that our inquiry may but confirm his guilt; but, in any case, we have
a line of investigation which has been missed by the police, and which a singular
chance has placed in our hands. Let us follow it out to the bitter end. Faces to the
south, then, and quick march!”

We passed across Holborn, down Endell Street, and so through a zigzag of
slums to Covent Garden Market. One of the largest stalls bore the name of
Breckinridge upon it, and the proprietor a horsey-looking man, with a sharp face
and trim side-whiskers was helping a boy to put up the shutters.

“Good-evening. It’s a cold night,” said Holmes.

The salesman nodded and shot a questioning glance at my companion.

“Sold out of geese, I see,” continued Holmes, pointing at the bare slabs of
marble.

“Let you have five hundred to-morrow morning.”

“That’s no good.”

“Well, there are some on the stall with the gas-flare.”

“Ah, but I was recommended to you.”

“Who by?”

“The landlord of the Alpha.”

“Oh, yes; I sent him a couple of dozen.”

“Fine birds they were, too. Now where did you get them from?”

To my surprise the question provoked a burst of anger from the salesman.

“Now, then, mister,” said he, with his head cocked and his arms akimbo,
“what are you driving at? Let’s have it straight, now.”

“It is straight enough. I should like to know who sold you the geese which you
supplied to the Alpha.”

“Well then, I shan’t tell you. So now!”

“Oh, it is a matter of no importance; but I don’t know why you should be so
warm over such a trifle.”

“Warm! You’d be as warm, maybe, if you were as pestered as I am. When I
pay good money for a good article there should be an end of the business; but it’s
‘Where are the geese?’ and ‘Who did you sell the geese to?’ and ‘What will you
take for the geese?’ One would think they were the only geese in the world, to
hear the fuss that is made over them.”

“Well, I have no connection with any other people who have been making
inquiries,” said Holmes carelessly. “If you won’t tell us the bet is off, that is all.
But I’m always ready to back my opinion on a matter of fowls, and I have a fiver
on it that the bird I ate is country bred.”

“Well, then, you’ve lost your fiver, for it’s town bred,” snapped the salesman.

“It’s nothing of the kind.”

“I say it is.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“D’you think you know more about fowls than I, who have handled them ever
since I was a nipper? I tell you, all those birds that went to the Alpha were town
bred.”

“You’ll never persuade me to believe that.”

“Will you bet, then?”

“It’s merely taking your money, for I know that I am right. But I’ll have a
sovereign on with you, just to teach you not to be obstinate.”

The salesman chuckled grimly. “Bring me the books, Bill,” said he.

The small boy brought round a small thin volume and a great greasy-backed
one, laying them out together beneath the hanging lamp.

“Now then, Mr. Cocksure,” said the salesman, “I thought that I was out of
geese, but before I finish you’ll find that there is still one left in my shop. You
see this little book?”

“Well?”

“That’s the list of the folk from whom I buy. D’you see? Well, then, here on
this page are the country folk, and the numbers after their names are where their
accounts are in the big ledger. Now, then! You see this other page in red ink?
Well, that is a list of my town suppliers. Now, look at that third name. Just read it
out to me.”

“Mrs. Oakshott, 117, Brixton Road—249,” read Holmes.

“Quite so. Now turn that up in the ledger.”

Holmes turned to the page indicated. “Here you are, ‘Mrs. Oakshott, 117,
Brixton Road, egg and poultry supplier.’”

“Now, then, what’s the last entry?”

“‘December 22nd. Twenty-four geese at 7s. 6d.’”

“Quite so. There you are. And underneath?”

“‘Sold to Mr. Windigate of the Alpha, at 12s.’”

“What have you to say now?”

Sherlock Holmes looked deeply chagrined. He drew a sovereign from his
pocket and threw it down upon the slab, turning away with the air of a man
whose disgust is too deep for words. A few yards off he stopped under a lamp-
post and laughed in the hearty, noiseless fashion which was peculiar to him.

“When you see a man with whiskers of that cut and the ‘Pink ’un’ protruding
out of his pocket, you can always draw him by a bet,” said he. “I daresay that if I
had put £ 100 down in front of him, that man would not have given me such
complete information as was drawn from him by the idea that he was doing me
on a wager. Well, Watson, we are, I fancy, nearing the end of our quest, and the
only point which remains to be determined is whether we should go on to this
Mrs. Oakshott to-night, or whether we should reserve it for to-morrow. It is clear
from what that surly fellow said that there are others besides ourselves who are
anxious about the matter, and I should—”

His remarks were suddenly cut short by a loud hubbub which broke out from
the stall which we had just left. Turning round we saw a little rat-faced fellow
standing in the centre of the circle of yellow light which was thrown by the
swinging lamp, while Breckinridge, the salesman, framed in the door of his stall,
was shaking his fists fiercely at the cringing figure.

“I’ve had enough of you and your geese,” he shouted. “I wish you were all at
the devil together. If you come pestering me any more with your silly talk I’ll set
the dog at you. You bring Mrs. Oakshott here and I’ll answer her, but what have
you to do with it? Did I buy the geese off you?”

“No; but one of them was mine all the same,” whined the little man.

“Well, then, ask Mrs. Oakshott for it.”

“She told me to ask you.”

“Well, you can ask the King of Proosia, for all I care. I’ve had enough of it.
Get out of this!” He rushed fiercely forward, and the inquirer flitted away into
the darkness.

“Ha! this may save us a visit to Brixton Road,” whispered Holmes. “Come
with me, and we will see what is to be made of this fellow.” Striding through the
scattered knots of people who lounged round the flaring stalls, my companion
speedily overtook the little man and touched him upon the shoulder. He sprang
round, and I could see in the gas-light that every vestige of colour had been
driven from his face.

“Who are you, then? What do you want?” he asked in a quavering voice.

“You will excuse me,” said Holmes blandly, “but I could not help overhearing
the questions which you put to the salesman just now. I think that I could be of
assistance to you.”

“You? Who are you? How could you know anything of the matter?”

“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people
don’t know.”

“But you can know nothing of this?”

“Excuse me, I know everything of it. You are endeavouring to trace some
geese which were sold by Mrs. Oakshott, of Brixton Road, to a salesman named
Breckinridge, by him in turn to Mr. Windigate, of the Alpha, and by him to his
club, of which Mr. Henry Baker is a member.”

“Oh, sir, you are the very man whom I have longed to meet,” cried the little
fellow with outstretched hands and quivering fingers. “I can hardly explain to
you how interested I am in this matter.”

Sherlock Holmes hailed a four-wheeler which was passing. “In that case we
had better discuss it in a cosy room rather than in this wind-swept market-place,”
said he. “But pray tell me, before we go farther, who it is that I have the pleasure
of assisting.”

The man hesitated for an instant. “My name is John Robinson,” he answered
with a sidelong glance.

“No, no; the real name,” said Holmes sweetly. “It is always awkward doing
business with an alias.”

A flush sprang to the white cheeks of the stranger. “Well then,” said he, “my
real name is James Ryder.”

“Precisely so. Head attendant at the Hotel Cosmopolitan. Pray step into the
cab, and I shall soon be able to tell you everything which you would wish to
know.”

The little man stood glancing from one to the other of us with half-frightened,
half-hopeful eyes, as one who is not sure whether he is on the verge of a windfall
or of a catastrophe. Then he stepped into the cab, and in half an hour we were
back in the sitting-room at Baker Street. Nothing had been said during our drive,
but the high, thin breathing of our new companion, and the claspings and
unclaspings of his hands, spoke of the nervous tension within him.

“Here we are!” said Holmes cheerily as we filed into the room. “The fire
looks very seasonable in this weather. You look cold, Mr. Ryder. Pray take the

basket-chair. I will just put on my slippers before we settle this little matter of
yours. Now, then! You want to know what became of those geese?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Or rather, I fancy, of that goose. It was one bird, I imagine in which you were
interested—white, with a black bar across the tail.”

Ryder quivered with emotion. “Oh, sir,” he cried, “can you tell me where it
went to?”

“It came here.”

“Here?”

“Yes, and a most remarkable bird it proved. I don’t wonder that you should
take an interest in it. It laid an egg after it was dead—the bonniest, brightest little
blue egg that ever was seen. I have it here in my museum.”

Our visitor staggered to his feet and clutched the mantelpiece with his right
hand. Holmes unlocked his strong-box and held up the blue carbuncle, which
shone out like a star, with a cold, brilliant, many-pointed radiance. Ryder stood
glaring with a drawn face, uncertain whether to claim or to disown it.

“The game’s up, Ryder,” said Holmes quietly. “Hold up, man, or you’ll be into
the fire! Give him an arm back into his chair, Watson. He’s not got blood enough
to go in for felony with impunity. Give him a dash of brandy. So! Now he looks
a little more human. What a shrimp it is, to be sure!”

For a moment he had staggered and nearly fallen, but the brandy brought a
tinge of colour into his cheeks, and he sat staring with frightened eyes at his
accuser.

“I have almost every link in my hands, and all the proofs which I could
possibly need, so there is little which you need tell me. Still, that little may as
well be cleared up to make the case complete. You had heard, Ryder, of this blue
stone of the Countess of Morcar’s?”

“It was Catherine Cusack who told me of it,” said he in a crackling voice.

“I see—her ladyship’s waiting-maid. Well, the temptation of sudden wealth so
easily acquired was too much for you, as it has been for better men before you;
but you were not very scrupulous in the means you used. It seems to me, Ryder,
that there is the making of a very pretty villain in you. You knew that this man
Horner, the plumber, had been concerned in some such matter before, and that
suspicion would rest the more readily upon him. What did you do, then? You
made some small job in my lady’s room—you and your confederate Cusack—
and you managed that he should be the man sent for. Then, when he had left, you

rifled the jewel-case, raised the alarm, and had this unfortunate man arrested.
You then—”

Ryder threw himself down suddenly upon the rug and clutched at my
companion’s knees. “For God’s sake, have mercy!” he shrieked. “Think of my
father! Of my mother! It would break their hearts. I never went wrong before! I
never will again. I swear it. I’ll swear it on a Bible. Oh, don’t bring it into court!
For Christ’s sake, don’t!”

“Get back into your chair!” said Holmes sternly. “It is very well to cringe and
crawl now, but you thought little enough of this poor Horner in the dock for a
crime of which he knew nothing.”

“I will fly, Mr. Holmes. I will leave the country, sir. Then the charge against
him will break down.”

“Hum! We will talk about that. And now let us hear a true account of the next
act. How came the stone into the goose, and how came the goose into the open
market? Tell us the truth, for there lies your only hope of safety.”

Ryder passed his tongue over his parched lips. “I will tell you it just as it
happened, sir,” said he. “When Horner had been arrested, it seemed to me that it
would be best for me to get away with the stone at once, for I did not know at
what moment the police might not take it into their heads to search me and my
room. There was no place about the hotel where it would be safe. I went out, as
if on some commission, and I made for my sister’s house. She had married a
man named Oakshott, and lived in Brixton Road, where she fattened fowls for
the market. All the way there every man I met seemed to me to be a policeman
or a detective; and, for all that it was a cold night, the sweat was pouring down
my face before I came to the Brixton Road. My sister asked me what was the
matter, and why I was so pale; but I told her that I had been upset by the jewel
robbery at the hotel. Then I went into the back yard and smoked a pipe and
wondered what it would be best to do.

“I had a friend once called Maudsley, who went to the bad, and has just been
serving his time in Pentonville. One day he had met me, and fell into talk about
the ways of thieves, and how they could get rid of what they stole. I knew that he
would be true to me, for I knew one or two things about him; so I made up my
mind to go right on to Kilburn, where he lived, and take him into my confidence.
He would show me how to turn the stone into money. But how to get to him in
safety? I thought of the agonies I had gone through in coming from the hotel. I
might at any moment be seized and searched, and there would be the stone in my
waistcoat pocket. I was leaning against the wall at the time and looking at the

geese which were waddling about round my feet, and suddenly an idea came into
my head which showed me how I could beat the best detective that ever lived.

“My sister had told me some weeks before that I might have the pick of her
geese for a Christmas present, and I knew that she was always as good as her
word. I would take my goose now, and in it I would carry my stone to Kilburn.
There was a little shed in the yard, and behind this I drove one of the birds—a
fine big one, white, with a barred tail. I caught it, and prying its bill open, I thrust
the stone down its throat as far as my finger could reach. The bird gave a gulp,
and I felt the stone pass along its gullet and down into its crop. But the creature
flapped and struggled, and out came my sister to know what was the matter. As I
turned to speak to her the brute broke loose and fluttered off among the others.

“‘Whatever were you doing with that bird, Jem?’ says she.

“‘Well,’ said I, ‘you said you’d give me one for Christmas, and I was feeling
which was the fattest.’

“‘Oh,’ says she, ‘we’ve set yours aside for you—Jem’s bird, we call it. It’s the
big white one over yonder. There’s twenty-six of them, which makes one for
you, and one for us, and two dozen for the market.’

“‘Thank you, Maggie,’ says I; ‘but if it is all the same to you, I’d rather have
that one I was handling just now.’

“‘The other is a good three pound heavier,’ said she, ‘and we fattened it
expressly for you.’

“‘Never mind. I’ll have the other, and I’ll take it now,’ said I.

“‘Oh, just as you like,’ said she, a little huffed. ‘Which is it you want, then?’

“‘That white one with the barred tail, right in the middle of the flock.’

“‘Oh, very well. Kill it and take it with you.’

“Well, I did what she said, Mr. Holmes, and I carried the bird all the way to
Kilburn. I told my pal what I had done, for he was a man that it was easy to tell a
thing like that to. He laughed until he choked, and we got a knife and opened the
goose. My heart turned to water, for there was no sign of the stone, and I knew
that some terrible mistake had occurred. I left the bird, rushed back to my
sister’s, and hurried into the back yard. There was not a bird to be seen there.

“‘Where are they all, Maggie?’ I cried.

“‘Gone to the dealer’s, Jem.’

“‘Which dealer’s?’

“‘Breckinridge, of Covent Garden.’

“‘But was there another with a barred tail?’ I asked, ‘the same as the one I
chose?’

“‘Yes, Jem; there were two barred-tailed ones, and I could never tell them
apart.’

“Well, then, of course I saw it all, and I ran off as hard as my feet would carry
me to this man Breckinridge; but he had sold the lot at once, and not one word
would he tell me as to where they had gone. You heard him yourselves to-night.
Well, he has always answered me like that. My sister thinks that I am going mad.
Sometimes I think that I am myself. And now—and now I am myself a branded
thief, without ever having touched the wealth for which I sold my character. God
help me! God help me!” He burst into convulsive sobbing, with his face buried
in his hands.

There was a long silence, broken only by his heavy breathing and by the
measured tapping of Sherlock Holmes’ finger-tips upon the edge of the table.
Then my friend rose and threw open the door.

“Get out!” said he.

“What, sir! Oh, Heaven bless you!”

“No more words. Get out!”

And no more words were needed. There was a rush, a clatter upon the stairs,
the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running footfalls from the street.

“After all, Watson,” said Holmes, reaching up his hand for his clay pipe, “I am
not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies. If Horner were in danger it
would be another thing; but this fellow will not appear against him, and the case
must collapse. I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that
I am saving a soul. This fellow will not go wrong again; he is too terribly
frightened. Send him to gaol now, and you make him a gaol-bird for life.
Besides, it is the season of forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most
singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward. If you will
have the goodness to touch the bell, Doctor, we will begin another investigation,
in which, also a bird will be the chief feature.”

VIII.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND

On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during

the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find
many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none
commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the
acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation
which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic. Of all these
varied cases, however, I cannot recall any which presented more singular
features than that which was associated with the well-known Surrey family of
the Roylotts of Stoke Moran. The events in question occurred in the early days
of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors in
Baker Street. It is possible that I might have placed them upon record before, but
a promise of secrecy was made at the time, from which I have only been freed
during the last month by the untimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was
given. It is perhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for I have
reasons to know that there are widespread rumours as to the death of Dr.
Grimesby Roylott which tend to make the matter even more terrible than the
truth.

It was early in April in the year ’83 that I woke one morning to find Sherlock
Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my bed. He was a late riser, as a
rule, and as the clock on the mantelpiece showed me that it was only a quarter-
past seven, I blinked up at him in some surprise, and perhaps just a little
resentment, for I was myself regular in my habits.

“Very sorry to knock you up, Watson,” said he, “but it’s the common lot this
morning. Mrs. Hudson has been knocked up, she retorted upon me, and I on
you.”

“What is it, then—a fire?”

“No; a client. It seems that a young lady has arrived in a considerable state of
excitement, who insists upon seeing me. She is waiting now in the sitting-room.
Now, when young ladies wander about the metropolis at this hour of the
morning, and knock sleepy people up out of their beds, I presume that it is

something very pressing which they have to communicate. Should it prove to be
an interesting case, you would, I am sure, wish to follow it from the outset. I
thought, at any rate, that I should call you and give you the chance.”

“My dear fellow, I would not miss it for anything.”

I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional
investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and
yet always founded on a logical basis with which he unravelled the problems
which were submitted to him. I rapidly threw on my clothes and was ready in a
few minutes to accompany my friend down to the sitting-room. A lady dressed in
black and heavily veiled, who had been sitting in the window, rose as we
entered.

“Good-morning, madam,” said Holmes cheerily. “My name is Sherlock
Holmes. This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, before whom you
can speak as freely as before myself. Ha! I am glad to see that Mrs. Hudson has
had the good sense to light the fire. Pray draw up to it, and I shall order you a
cup of hot coffee, for I observe that you are shivering.”

“It is not cold which makes me shiver,” said the woman in a low voice,
changing her seat as requested.

“What, then?”

“It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror.” She raised her veil as she spoke, and we
could see that she was indeed in a pitiable state of agitation, her face all drawn
and grey, with restless frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal. Her
features and figure were those of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot with
premature grey, and her expression was weary and haggard. Sherlock Holmes
ran her over with one of his quick, all-comprehensive glances.

“You must not fear,” said he soothingly, bending forward and patting her
forearm. “We shall soon set matters right, I have no doubt. You have come in by
train this morning, I see.”

“You know me, then?”

“No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left
glove. You must have started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dog-cart,
along heavy roads, before you reached the station.”

The lady gave a violent start and stared in bewilderment at my companion.

“There is no mystery, my dear madam,” said he, smiling. “The left arm of
your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The marks are
perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that

way, and then only when you sit on the left-hand side of the driver.”

“Whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct,” said she. “I started
from home before six, reached Leatherhead at twenty past, and came in by the
first train to Waterloo. Sir, I can stand this strain no longer; I shall go mad if it
continues. I have no one to turn to—none, save only one, who cares for me, and
he, poor fellow, can be of little aid. I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes; I have
heard of you from Mrs. Farintosh, whom you helped in the hour of her sore
need. It was from her that I had your address. Oh, sir, do you not think that you
could help me, too, and at least throw a little light through the dense darkness
which surrounds me? At present it is out of my power to reward you for your
services, but in a month or six weeks I shall be married, with the control of my
own income, and then at least you shall not find me ungrateful.”

Holmes turned to his desk and, unlocking it, drew out a small case-book,
which he consulted.

“Farintosh,” said he. “Ah yes, I recall the case; it was concerned with an opal
tiara. I think it was before your time, Watson. I can only say, madam, that I shall
be happy to devote the same care to your case as I did to that of your friend. As
to reward, my profession is its own reward; but you are at liberty to defray
whatever expenses I may be put to, at the time which suits you best. And now I
beg that you will lay before us everything that may help us in forming an
opinion upon the matter.”

“Alas!” replied our visitor, “the very horror of my situation lies in the fact that
my fears are so vague, and my suspicions depend so entirely upon small points,
which might seem trivial to another, that even he to whom of all others I have a
right to look for help and advice looks upon all that I tell him about it as the
fancies of a nervous woman. He does not say so, but I can read it from his
soothing answers and averted eyes. But I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can
see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart. You may advise me
how to walk amid the dangers which encompass me.”

“I am all attention, madam.”

“My name is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my stepfather, who is the last
survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in England, the Roylotts of Stoke
Moran, on the western border of Surrey.”

Holmes nodded his head. “The name is familiar to me,” said he.

“The family was at one time among the richest in England, and the estates
extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north, and Hampshire in the
west. In the last century, however, four successive heirs were of a dissolute and

wasteful disposition, and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler
in the days of the Regency. Nothing was left save a few acres of ground, and the
two-hundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under a heavy mortgage.
The last squire dragged out his existence there, living the horrible life of an
aristocratic pauper; but his only son, my stepfather, seeing that he must adapt
himself to the new conditions, obtained an advance from a relative, which
enabled him to take a medical degree and went out to Calcutta, where, by his
professional skill and his force of character, he established a large practice. In a
fit of anger, however, caused by some robberies which had been perpetrated in
the house, he beat his native butler to death and narrowly escaped a capital
sentence. As it was, he suffered a long term of imprisonment and afterwards
returned to England a morose and disappointed man.

“When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner, the young
widow of Major-General Stoner, of the Bengal Artillery. My sister Julia and I
were twins, and we were only two years old at the time of my mother’s re-
marriage. She had a considerable sum of money—not less than £ 1000 a year—
and this she bequeathed to Dr. Roylott entirely while we resided with him, with a
provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed to each of us in the event
of our marriage. Shortly after our return to England my mother died—she was
killed eight years ago in a railway accident near Crewe. Dr. Roylott then
abandoned his attempts to establish himself in practice in London and took us to
live with him in the old ancestral house at Stoke Moran. The money which my
mother had left was enough for all our wants, and there seemed to be no obstacle
to our happiness.

“But a terrible change came over our stepfather about this time. Instead of
making friends and exchanging visits with our neighbours, who had at first been
overjoyed to see a Roylott of Stoke Moran back in the old family seat, he shut
himself up in his house and seldom came out save to indulge in ferocious
quarrels with whoever might cross his path. Violence of temper approaching to
mania has been hereditary in the men of the family, and in my stepfather’s case it
had, I believe, been intensified by his long residence in the tropics. A series of
disgraceful brawls took place, two of which ended in the police-court, until at
last he became the terror of the village, and the folks would fly at his approach,
for he is a man of immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger.

“Last week he hurled the local blacksmith over a parapet into a stream, and it
was only by paying over all the money which I could gather together that I was
able to avert another public exposure. He had no friends at all save the
wandering gipsies, and he would give these vagabonds leave to encamp upon the

few acres of bramble-covered land which represent the family estate, and would
accept in return the hospitality of their tents, wandering away with them
sometimes for weeks on end. He has a passion also for Indian animals, which are
sent over to him by a correspondent, and he has at this moment a cheetah and a
baboon, which wander freely over his grounds and are feared by the villagers
almost as much as their master.

“You can imagine from what I say that my poor sister Julia and I had no great
pleasure in our lives. No servant would stay with us, and for a long time we did
all the work of the house. She was but thirty at the time of her death, and yet her
hair had already begun to whiten, even as mine has.”

“Your sister is dead, then?”

“She died just two years ago, and it is of her death that I wish to speak to you.
You can understand that, living the life which I have described, we were little
likely to see anyone of our own age and position. We had, however, an aunt, my
mother’s maiden sister, Miss Honoria Westphail, who lives near Harrow, and we
were occasionally allowed to pay short visits at this lady’s house. Julia went
there at Christmas two years ago, and met there a half-pay major of marines, to
whom she became engaged. My stepfather learned of the engagement when my
sister returned and offered no objection to the marriage; but within a fortnight of
the day which had been fixed for the wedding, the terrible event occurred which
has deprived me of my only companion.”

Sherlock Holmes had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed and
his head sunk in a cushion, but he half opened his lids now and glanced across at
his visitor.

“Pray be precise as to details,” said he.

“It is easy for me to be so, for every event of that dreadful time is seared into
my memory. The manor-house is, as I have already said, very old, and only one
wing is now inhabited. The bedrooms in this wing are on the ground floor, the
sitting-rooms being in the central block of the buildings. Of these bedrooms the
first is Dr. Roylott’s, the second my sister’s, and the third my own. There is no
communication between them, but they all open out into the same corridor. Do I
make myself plain?”

“Perfectly so.”

“The windows of the three rooms open out upon the lawn. That fatal night Dr.
Roylott had gone to his room early, though we knew that he had not retired to
rest, for my sister was troubled by the smell of the strong Indian cigars which it
was his custom to smoke. She left her room, therefore, and came into mine,

where she sat for some time, chatting about her approaching wedding. At eleven
o’clock she rose to leave me, but she paused at the door and looked back.

“‘Tell me, Helen,’ said she, ‘have you ever heard anyone whistle in the dead
of the night?’

“‘Never,’ said I.

“‘I suppose that you could not possibly whistle, yourself, in your sleep?’

“‘Certainly not. But why?’

“‘Because during the last few nights I have always, about three in the
morning, heard a low, clear whistle. I am a light sleeper, and it has awakened me.
I cannot tell where it came from—perhaps from the next room, perhaps from the
lawn. I thought that I would just ask you whether you had heard it.’

“‘No, I have not. It must be those wretched gipsies in the plantation.’

“‘Very likely. And yet if it were on the lawn, I wonder that you did not hear it
also.’

“‘Ah, but I sleep more heavily than you.’

“‘Well, it is of no great consequence, at any rate.’ She smiled back at me,
closed my door, and a few moments later I heard her key turn in the lock.”

“Indeed,” said Holmes. “Was it your custom always to lock yourselves in at
night?”

“Always.”

“And why?”

“I think that I mentioned to you that the Doctor kept a cheetah and a baboon.
We had no feeling of security unless our doors were locked.”

“Quite so. Pray proceed with your statement.”

“I could not sleep that night. A vague feeling of impending misfortune
impressed me. My sister and I, you will recollect, were twins, and you know
how subtle are the links which bind two souls which are so closely allied. It was
a wild night. The wind was howling outside, and the rain was beating and
splashing against the windows. Suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale, there
burst forth the wild scream of a terrified woman. I knew that it was my sister ’s
voice. I sprang from my bed, wrapped a shawl round me, and rushed into the
corridor. As I opened my door I seemed to hear a low whistle, such as my sister
described, and a few moments later a clanging sound, as if a mass of metal had
fallen. As I ran down the passage, my sister’s door was unlocked, and revolved
slowly upon its hinges. I stared at it horror-stricken, not knowing what was about

to issue from it. By the light of the corridor-lamp I saw my sister appear at the
opening, her face blanched with terror, her hands groping for help, her whole
figure swaying to and fro like that of a drunkard. I ran to her and threw my arms
round her, but at that moment her knees seemed to give way and she fell to the
ground. She writhed as one who is in terrible pain, and her limbs were dreadfully
convulsed. At first I thought that she had not recognised me, but as I bent over
her she suddenly shrieked out in a voice which I shall never forget, ‘Oh, my
God! Helen! It was the band! The speckled band!’ There was something else
which she would fain have said, and she stabbed with her finger into the air in
the direction of the Doctor’s room, but a fresh convulsion seized her and choked
her words. I rushed out, calling loudly for my stepfather, and I met him
hastening from his room in his dressing-gown. When he reached my sister’s side
she was unconscious, and though he poured brandy down her throat and sent for
medical aid from the village, all efforts were in vain, for she slowly sank and
died without having recovered her consciousness. Such was the dreadful end of
my beloved sister.”

“One moment,” said Holmes, “are you sure about this whistle and metallic
sound? Could you swear to it?”

“That was what the county coroner asked me at the inquiry. It is my strong
impression that I heard it, and yet, among the crash of the gale and the creaking
of an old house, I may possibly have been deceived.”

“Was your sister dressed?”

“No, she was in her night-dress. In her right hand was found the charred
stump of a match, and in her left a match-box.”

“Showing that she had struck a light and looked about her when the alarm
took place. That is important. And what conclusions did the coroner come to?”

“He investigated the case with great care, for Dr. Roylott’s conduct had long
been notorious in the county, but he was unable to find any satisfactory cause of
death. My evidence showed that the door had been fastened upon the inner side,
and the windows were blocked by old-fashioned shutters with broad iron bars,
which were secured every night. The walls were carefully sounded, and were
shown to be quite solid all round, and the flooring was also thoroughly
examined, with the same result. The chimney is wide, but is barred up by four
large staples. It is certain, therefore, that my sister was quite alone when she met
her end. Besides, there were no marks of any violence upon her.”

“How about poison?”

“The doctors examined her for it, but without success.”

“What do you think that this unfortunate lady died of, then?”

“It is my belief that she died of pure fear and nervous shock, though what it
was that frightened her I cannot imagine.”

“Were there gipsies in the plantation at the time?”

“Yes, there are nearly always some there.”

“Ah, and what did you gather from this allusion to a band—a speckled band?”

“Sometimes I have thought that it was merely the wild talk of delirium,
sometimes that it may have referred to some band of people, perhaps to these
very gipsies in the plantation. I do not know whether the spotted handkerchiefs
which so many of them wear over their heads might have suggested the strange
adjective which she used.”

Holmes shook his head like a man who is far from being satisfied.

“These are very deep waters,” said he; “pray go on with your narrative.”

“Two years have passed since then, and my life has been until lately lonelier
than ever. A month ago, however, a dear friend, whom I have known for many
years, has done me the honour to ask my hand in marriage. His name is
Armitage—Percy Armitage—the second son of Mr. Armitage, of Crane Water,
near Reading. My stepfather has offered no opposition to the match, and we are
to be married in the course of the spring. Two days ago some repairs were started
in the west wing of the building, and my bedroom wall has been pierced, so that
I have had to move into the chamber in which my sister died, and to sleep in the
very bed in which she slept. Imagine, then, my thrill of terror when last night, as
I lay awake, thinking over her terrible fate, I suddenly heard in the silence of the
night the low whistle which had been the herald of her own death. I sprang up
and lit the lamp, but nothing was to be seen in the room. I was too shaken to go
to bed again, however, so I dressed, and as soon as it was daylight I slipped
down, got a dog-cart at the Crown Inn, which is opposite, and drove to
Leatherhead, from whence I have come on this morning with the one object of
seeing you and asking your advice.”

“You have done wisely,” said my friend. “But have you told me all?”

“Yes, all.”

“Miss Roylott, you have not. You are screening your stepfather.”

“Why, what do you mean?”

For answer Holmes pushed back the frill of black lace which fringed the hand
that lay upon our visitor’s knee. Five little livid spots, the marks of four fingers
and a thumb, were printed upon the white wrist.

“You have been cruelly used,” said Holmes.

The lady coloured deeply and covered over her injured wrist. “He is a hard
man,” she said, “and perhaps he hardly knows his own strength.”

There was a long silence, during which Holmes leaned his chin upon his
hands and stared into the crackling fire.

“This is a very deep business,” he said at last. “There are a thousand details
which I should desire to know before I decide upon our course of action. Yet we
have not a moment to lose. If we were to come to Stoke Moran to-day, would it
be possible for us to see over these rooms without the knowledge of your
stepfather?”

“As it happens, he spoke of coming into town to-day upon some most
important business. It is probable that he will be away all day, and that there
would be nothing to disturb you. We have a housekeeper now, but she is old and
foolish, and I could easily get her out of the way.”

“Excellent. You are not averse to this trip, Watson?”

“By no means.”

“Then we shall both come. What are you going to do yourself?”

“I have one or two things which I would wish to do now that I am in town.
But I shall return by the twelve o’clock train, so as to be there in time for your
coming.”

“And you may expect us early in the afternoon. I have myself some small
business matters to attend to. Will you not wait and breakfast?”

“No, I must go. My heart is lightened already since I have confided my
trouble to you. I shall look forward to seeing you again this afternoon.” She
dropped her thick black veil over her face and glided from the room.

“And what do you think of it all, Watson?” asked Sherlock Holmes, leaning
back in his chair.

“It seems to me to be a most dark and sinister business.”

“Dark enough and sinister enough.”

“Yet if the lady is correct in saying that the flooring and walls are sound, and
that the door, window, and chimney are impassable, then her sister must have
been undoubtedly alone when she met her mysterious end.”

“What becomes, then, of these nocturnal whistles, and what of the very
peculiar words of the dying woman?”

“I cannot think.”