A STUDY IN SCARLET part 1 chapter 7
$Unique_ID{SLH00007}
$Title{A STUDY IN SCARLET; Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H.
Watson, M.D., Late of the Army Medical Department; Light in the Darkness}
$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}
$Subject{}
$Journal{}
$Volume{}
$Date{}
$Log{Plate A*0000101.scf
Plate B*0000102.scf}
THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES
A STUDY IN SCARLET
Part 1
BEING A REPRINT FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN H.
WATSON, M.D., LATE OF THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT
Chapter 7
LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS
THE intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so momentous and so
unexpected that we were all three fairly dumfounded. Gregson sprang out of
his chair and upset the remainder of his whisky and water. I stared in
silence at Sherlock Holmes, whose lips were compressed and his brows drawn
down over his eyes.
"Stangerson too!" he muttered. "The plot thickens."
"It was quite thick enough before," grumbled Lestrade, taking a chair.
"I seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war."
"Are you--are you sure of this piece of intelligence?" stammered Gregson.
"I have just come from his room," said Lestrade. "I was the first to
discover what had occurred."
"We have been hearing Gregson's view of the matter," Holmes observed.
"Would you mind letting us know what you have seen and done?"
"I have no objection," Lestrade answered, seating himself. "I freely
confess that I was of the opinion that Stangerson was concerned in the death
of Drebber. This fresh development has shown me that I was completely
mistaken. Full of the one idea, I set myself to find out what had become of
the secretary. They had been seen together at Euston Station about half-past
eight on the evening of the 3rd. At two in the morning Drebber had been found
in the Brixton Road. The question which confronted me was to find out how
Stangerson had been employed between 8:30 and the time of the crime, and what
had become of him afterwards. I telegraphed to Liverpool, giving a
description of the man, and warning them to keep a watch upon the American
boats. I then set to work calling upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in
the vicinity of Euston. You see, I argued that if Drebber and his companion
had become separated, the natural course for the latter would be to put up
somewhere in the vicinity for the night, and then to hang about the station
again next morning."
"They would be likely to agree on some meeting-place beforehand,"
remarked Holmes.
"So it proved. I spent the whole of yesterday evening in making
inquiries entirely without avail. This morning I began very early, and at
eight o'clock I reached Halliday's Private Hotel, in Little George Street. On
my inquiry as to whether a Mr. Stangerson was living there, they at once
answered me in the affirmative.
"'No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,' they said. 'He
has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.'
"'Where is he now?' I asked.
"'He is upstairs in bed. He wished to be called at nine.'
"'I will go up and see him at once,' I said.
"It seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his nerves and
lead him to say something unguarded. The boots volunteered to show me the
room: it was on the second floor, and there was a small corridor leading up
to it. The boots pointed out the door to me, and was about to go downstairs
again when I saw something that made me feel sickish, in spite of my twenty
years' experience. From under the door there curled a little red ribbon of
blood, which had meandered across the passage and formed a little pool along
the skirting at the other side. I gave a cry, which brought the boots back.
He nearly fainted when he saw it. The door was locked on the inside, but we
put our shoulders to it, and knocked it in. The window of the room was open,
and beside the window, all huddled up, lay the body of a man in his
nightdress. He was quite dead, and had been for some time, for his limbs were
rigid and cold. When we turned him over, the boots recognized him at once as
being the same gentleman who had engaged the room under the name of Joseph
Stangerson. The cause of death was a deep stab in the left side, which must
have penetrated the heart. And now comes the strangest part of the affair.
What do you suppose was above the murdered man?"
I felt a creeping of the flesh, and a presentiment of coming horror, even
before Sherlock Holmes answered.
"The word RACHE, written in letters of blood," he said.
"That was it," said Lestrade, in an awestruck voice; and we were all
silent for a while.
There was something so methodical and so incomprehensible about the deeds
of this unknown assassin, that it imparted a fresh ghastliness to his crimes.
My nerves, which were steady enough on the field of battle, tingled as I
thought of it.
"The man was seen," continued Lestrade. "A milk boy, passing on his way
to the dairy, happened to walk down the lane which leads from the mews at the
back of the hotel. He noticed that a ladder, which usually lay there, was
raised against one of the windows of the second floor, which was wide open.
After passing, he looked back and saw a man descend the ladder. He came down
so quietly and openly that the boy imagined him to be some carpenter or joiner
at work in the hotel. He took no particular notice of him, beyond thinking in
his own mind that it was early for him to be at work. He has an impression
that the man was tall, had a reddish face, and was dressed in a long, brownish
coat. He must have stayed in the room some little time after the murder, for
we found blood-stained water in the basin, where he had washed his hands, and
marks on the sheets where he had deliberately wiped his knife."
I glanced at Holmes on hearing the description of the murderer which
tallied so exactly with his own. There was, however, no trace of exultation
or satisfaction upon his face.
"Did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue to the
murderer?" he asked.
"Nothing. Stangerson had Drebber's purse in his pocket, but it seems
that this was usual, as he did all the paying. There was eighty-odd pounds in
it, but nothing had been taken. Whatever the motives of these extraordinary
crimes, robbery is certainly not one of them. There were no papers or
memoranda in the murdered man's pocket, except a single telegram, dated from
Cleveland about a month ago, and containing the words, 'J. H. is in Europe.'
There was no name appended to this message."
"And there was nothing else?" Holmes asked.
"Nothing of any importance. The man's novel, with which he had read
himself to sleep, was lying upon the bed, and his pipe was on a chair beside
him. There was a glass of water on the table, and on the window-sill a small
chip ointment box containing a couple of pills."
Sherlock Holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of delight.
"The last link," he cried, exultantly. "My case is complete."
The two detectives stared at him in amazement.
"I have now in my hands," my companion said, confidently, "all the
threads which have formed such a tangle. There are, of course, details to be
filled in, but I am as certain of all the main facts, from the time that
Drebber parted from Stangerson at the station, up to the discovery of the body
of the latter, as if I had seen them with my own eyes. I will give you a
proof of my knowledge. Could you lay your hand upon those pills?"
"I have them," said Lestrade, producing a small white box; "I took them
and the purse and the telegram, intending to have them put in a place of
safety at the police station. It was the merest chance my taking these pills,
for I am bound to say that I do not attach any importance to them."
"Give them here," said Holmes. "Now, Doctor," turning to me, "are those
ordinary pills?"
They certainly were not. They were of a pearly gray colour, small,
round, and almost transparent against the light. "From their lightness and
transparency, I should imagine that they are soluble in water," I remarked.
"Precisely so," answered Holmes. "Now would you mind going down and
fetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has been bad so long, and
which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain yesterday?"
I went downstairs and carried the dog upstairs in my arms. Its laboured
breathing and glazing eye showed that it was not far from its end. Indeed,
its snow-white muzzle proclaimed that it had already exceeded the usual term
of canine existence. I placed it upon a cushion on the rug.
"I will now cut one of these pills in two," said Holmes, and drawing his
penknife he suited the action to the word. "One half we return into the box
for future purposes. The other half I will place in this wineglass, in which
is a teaspoonful of water. You perceive that our friend, the doctor, is
right, and that it readily dissolves."
"This may be very interesting," said Lestrade, in the injured tone of one
who suspects that he is being laughed at; "I cannot see, however, what it has
to do with the death of Mr. Joseph Stangerson."
"Patience, my friend, patience! You will find in time that it has
everything to do with it. I shall now add a little milk to make the mixture
palatable, and on presenting it to the dog we find that he laps it up readily
enough."
As he spoke he turned the contents of the wineglass into a saucer and
placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked it dry. Sherlock
Holmes's earnest demeanour had so far convinced us that we all sat in silence,
watching the animal intently, and expecting some startling effect. None such
appeared, however. The dog continued to lie stretched upon the cushion,
breathing in a laboured way, but apparently neither the better nor the worse
for its draught.
Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute without
result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment appeared upon
his features. He gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers upon the table, and
showed every other symptom of acute impatience. So great was his emotion that
I felt sincerely sorry for him, while the two detectives smiled derisively, by
no means displeased at this check which he had met.
"It can't be a coincidence," he cried, at last springing from his chair
and pacing wildly up and down the room; "it is impossible that it should be a
mere coincidence. The very pills which I suspected in the case of Drebber are
actually found after the death of Stangerson. And yet they are inert. What
can it mean? Surely my whole chain of reasoning cannot have been false. It
is impossible! And yet this wretched dog is none the worse. Ah, I have it!
I have it!" With a perfect shriek of delight he rushed to the box, cut the
other pill in two, dissolved it, added milk, and presented it to the terrier.
The unfortunate creature's tongue seemed hardly to have been moistened in it
before it gave a convulsive shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid and
lifeless as if it had been struck by lightning.
Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from his
forehead. "I should have more faith," he said; "I ought to know by this time
that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it
invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation. Of the
two pills in that box, one was of the most deadly poison, and the other was
entirely harmless. I ought to have known that before ever I saw the box at
all."
This last statement appeared to me to be so startling that I could hardly
believe that he was in his sober senses. There was the dead dog, however, to
prove that his conjecture had been correct. It seemed to me that the mists in
my own mind were gradually clearing away, and I began to have a dim, vague
perception of the truth.
"All this seems strange to you," continued Holmes, "because you failed at
the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the single real clue
which was presented to you. I had the good fortune to seize upon that, and
everything which has occurred since then has served to confirm my original
supposition, and, indeed, was the logical sequence of it. Hence things which
have perplexed you and made the case more obscure have served to enlighten me
and to strengthen my conclusions. It is a mistake to confound strangeness
with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious,
because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be
drawn. This murder would have been infinitely more difficult to unravel had
the body of the victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any of
those outre and sensational accompaniments which have rendered it remarkable.
These strange details, far from making the case more difficult, have really
had the effect of making it less so."
Mr. Gregson, who had listened to this address with considerable
impatience, could contain himself no longer. "Look here, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes," he said, "we are all ready to acknowledge that you are a smart man,
and that you have your own methods of working. We want something more than
mere theory and preaching now, though. It is a case of taking the man. I
have made my case out, and it seems I was wrong. Young Charpentier could not
have been engaged in this second affair. Lestrade went after his man,
Stangerson, and it appears that he was wrong too. You have thrown out hints
here, and hints there, and seem to know more than we do, but the time has come
when we feel that we have a right to ask you straight how much you do know of
the business. Can you name the man who did it?"
"I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right, sir," remarked Lestrade.
"We have both tried, and we have both failed. You have remarked more than
once since I have been in the room that you had all the evidence which you
require. Surely you will not withhold it any longer."
"Any delay in arresting the assassin," I observed, "might give him time
to perpetrate some fresh atrocity."
Thus pressed by us all, Holmes showed signs of irresolution. He
continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his chest and his
brows drawn down, as was his habit when lost in thought.
"There will be no more murders," he said at last, stopping abruptly and
facing us. "You can put that consideration out of the question. You have
asked me if I know the name of the assassin. I do. The mere knowing of his
name is a small thing, however, compared with the power of laying our hands
upon him. This I expect very shortly to do. I have good hopes of managing it
through my own arrangements; but it is a thing which needs delicate handling,
for we have a shrewd and desperate man to deal with, who is supported, as I
have had occasion to prove, by another who is as clever as himself. As long
as this man has no idea that anyone can have a clue there is some chance of
securing him; but if he had the slightest suspicion, he would change his name,
and vanish in an instant among the four million inhabitants of this great
city. Without meaning to hurt either of your feelings, I am bound to say that
I consider these men to be more than a match for the official force, and that
is why I have not asked your assistance. If I fail, I shall, of course, incur
all the blame due to this omission; but that I am prepared for. At present I
am ready to promise that the instant that I can communicate with you without
endangering my own combinations, I shall do so."
Gregson and Lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this assurance,
or by the depreciating allusion to the detective police. The former had
flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while the other's beady eyes
glistened with curiosity and resentment. Neither of them had time to speak,
however, before there was a tap at the door, and the spokesman of the street
Arabs, young Wiggins, introduced his insignificant and unsavoury person.
"Please, sir," he said, touching his forelock, "I have the cab
downstairs."
"Good boy," said Holmes, blandly. "Why don't you introduce this pattern
at Scotland Yard?" he continued, taking a pair of steel handcuffs from a
drawer. "See how beautifully the spring works. They fasten in an instant."
"The old pattern is good enough," remarked Lestrade, "if we can only find
the man to put them on."
"Very good, very good," said Holmes, smiling. "The cabman may as well
help me with my boxes. Just ask him to step up, Wiggins."
I was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he were about to
set out on a journey, since he had not said anything to me about it. There
was a small portmanteau in the room, and this he pulled out and began to
strap. He was busily engaged at it when the cabman entered the room.
"Just give me a help with this buckle, cabman," he said, kneeling over
his task, and never turning his head.
The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air, and put down
his hands to assist. At that instant there was a sharp click, the jangling of
metal, and Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet again.
"Gentlemen," he cried, with flashing eyes, "let me introduce you to Mr.
Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph Stangerson."
The whole thing occurred in a moment--so quickly that I had no time to
realize it. I have a vivid recollection of that instant, of Holmes's
triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the cabman's dazed, savage
face, as he glared at the glittering handcuffs, which had appeared as if by
magic upon his wrists. For a second or two we might have been a group of
statues. Then with an inarticulate roar of fury, the prisoner wrenched
himself free from Holmes's grasp, and hurled himself through the window.
Woodwork and glass gave way before him; but before he got quite through,
Gregson, Lestrade, and Holmes sprang upon him like so many staghounds. He was
dragged back into the room, and then commenced a terrific conflict. So
powerful and so fierce was he that the four of us were shaken off again and
again. He appeared to have the convulsive strength of a man in an epileptic
fit. His face and hands were terribly mangled by his passage through the
glass, but loss of blood had no effect in diminishing his resistance. It was
not until Lestrade succeeded in getting his hand inside his neckcloth and
half-strangling him that we made him realize that his struggles were of no
avail; and even then we felt no security until we had pinioned his feet as
well as his hands. That done, we rose to our feet breathless and panting.
"We have his cab," said Sherlock Holmes. "It will serve to take him to
Scotland Yard. And now, gentlemen," he continued, with a pleasant smile, "we
have reached the end of our little mystery. You are very welcome to put any
questions that you like to me now, and there is no danger that I will refuse
to answer them."
$Title{A STUDY IN SCARLET; Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H.
Watson, M.D., Late of the Army Medical Department; Light in the Darkness}
$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}
$Subject{}
$Journal{}
$Volume{}
$Date{}
$Log{Plate A*0000101.scf
Plate B*0000102.scf}
THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES
A STUDY IN SCARLET
Part 1
BEING A REPRINT FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN H.
WATSON, M.D., LATE OF THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT
Chapter 7
LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS
THE intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so momentous and so
unexpected that we were all three fairly dumfounded. Gregson sprang out of
his chair and upset the remainder of his whisky and water. I stared in
silence at Sherlock Holmes, whose lips were compressed and his brows drawn
down over his eyes.
"Stangerson too!" he muttered. "The plot thickens."
"It was quite thick enough before," grumbled Lestrade, taking a chair.
"I seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war."
"Are you--are you sure of this piece of intelligence?" stammered Gregson.
"I have just come from his room," said Lestrade. "I was the first to
discover what had occurred."
"We have been hearing Gregson's view of the matter," Holmes observed.
"Would you mind letting us know what you have seen and done?"
"I have no objection," Lestrade answered, seating himself. "I freely
confess that I was of the opinion that Stangerson was concerned in the death
of Drebber. This fresh development has shown me that I was completely
mistaken. Full of the one idea, I set myself to find out what had become of
the secretary. They had been seen together at Euston Station about half-past
eight on the evening of the 3rd. At two in the morning Drebber had been found
in the Brixton Road. The question which confronted me was to find out how
Stangerson had been employed between 8:30 and the time of the crime, and what
had become of him afterwards. I telegraphed to Liverpool, giving a
description of the man, and warning them to keep a watch upon the American
boats. I then set to work calling upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in
the vicinity of Euston. You see, I argued that if Drebber and his companion
had become separated, the natural course for the latter would be to put up
somewhere in the vicinity for the night, and then to hang about the station
again next morning."
"They would be likely to agree on some meeting-place beforehand,"
remarked Holmes.
"So it proved. I spent the whole of yesterday evening in making
inquiries entirely without avail. This morning I began very early, and at
eight o'clock I reached Halliday's Private Hotel, in Little George Street. On
my inquiry as to whether a Mr. Stangerson was living there, they at once
answered me in the affirmative.
"'No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,' they said. 'He
has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.'
"'Where is he now?' I asked.
"'He is upstairs in bed. He wished to be called at nine.'
"'I will go up and see him at once,' I said.
"It seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his nerves and
lead him to say something unguarded. The boots volunteered to show me the
room: it was on the second floor, and there was a small corridor leading up
to it. The boots pointed out the door to me, and was about to go downstairs
again when I saw something that made me feel sickish, in spite of my twenty
years' experience. From under the door there curled a little red ribbon of
blood, which had meandered across the passage and formed a little pool along
the skirting at the other side. I gave a cry, which brought the boots back.
He nearly fainted when he saw it. The door was locked on the inside, but we
put our shoulders to it, and knocked it in. The window of the room was open,
and beside the window, all huddled up, lay the body of a man in his
nightdress. He was quite dead, and had been for some time, for his limbs were
rigid and cold. When we turned him over, the boots recognized him at once as
being the same gentleman who had engaged the room under the name of Joseph
Stangerson. The cause of death was a deep stab in the left side, which must
have penetrated the heart. And now comes the strangest part of the affair.
What do you suppose was above the murdered man?"
I felt a creeping of the flesh, and a presentiment of coming horror, even
before Sherlock Holmes answered.
"The word RACHE, written in letters of blood," he said.
"That was it," said Lestrade, in an awestruck voice; and we were all
silent for a while.
There was something so methodical and so incomprehensible about the deeds
of this unknown assassin, that it imparted a fresh ghastliness to his crimes.
My nerves, which were steady enough on the field of battle, tingled as I
thought of it.
"The man was seen," continued Lestrade. "A milk boy, passing on his way
to the dairy, happened to walk down the lane which leads from the mews at the
back of the hotel. He noticed that a ladder, which usually lay there, was
raised against one of the windows of the second floor, which was wide open.
After passing, he looked back and saw a man descend the ladder. He came down
so quietly and openly that the boy imagined him to be some carpenter or joiner
at work in the hotel. He took no particular notice of him, beyond thinking in
his own mind that it was early for him to be at work. He has an impression
that the man was tall, had a reddish face, and was dressed in a long, brownish
coat. He must have stayed in the room some little time after the murder, for
we found blood-stained water in the basin, where he had washed his hands, and
marks on the sheets where he had deliberately wiped his knife."
I glanced at Holmes on hearing the description of the murderer which
tallied so exactly with his own. There was, however, no trace of exultation
or satisfaction upon his face.
"Did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue to the
murderer?" he asked.
"Nothing. Stangerson had Drebber's purse in his pocket, but it seems
that this was usual, as he did all the paying. There was eighty-odd pounds in
it, but nothing had been taken. Whatever the motives of these extraordinary
crimes, robbery is certainly not one of them. There were no papers or
memoranda in the murdered man's pocket, except a single telegram, dated from
Cleveland about a month ago, and containing the words, 'J. H. is in Europe.'
There was no name appended to this message."
"And there was nothing else?" Holmes asked.
"Nothing of any importance. The man's novel, with which he had read
himself to sleep, was lying upon the bed, and his pipe was on a chair beside
him. There was a glass of water on the table, and on the window-sill a small
chip ointment box containing a couple of pills."
Sherlock Holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of delight.
"The last link," he cried, exultantly. "My case is complete."
The two detectives stared at him in amazement.
"I have now in my hands," my companion said, confidently, "all the
threads which have formed such a tangle. There are, of course, details to be
filled in, but I am as certain of all the main facts, from the time that
Drebber parted from Stangerson at the station, up to the discovery of the body
of the latter, as if I had seen them with my own eyes. I will give you a
proof of my knowledge. Could you lay your hand upon those pills?"
"I have them," said Lestrade, producing a small white box; "I took them
and the purse and the telegram, intending to have them put in a place of
safety at the police station. It was the merest chance my taking these pills,
for I am bound to say that I do not attach any importance to them."
"Give them here," said Holmes. "Now, Doctor," turning to me, "are those
ordinary pills?"
They certainly were not. They were of a pearly gray colour, small,
round, and almost transparent against the light. "From their lightness and
transparency, I should imagine that they are soluble in water," I remarked.
"Precisely so," answered Holmes. "Now would you mind going down and
fetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has been bad so long, and
which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain yesterday?"
I went downstairs and carried the dog upstairs in my arms. Its laboured
breathing and glazing eye showed that it was not far from its end. Indeed,
its snow-white muzzle proclaimed that it had already exceeded the usual term
of canine existence. I placed it upon a cushion on the rug.
"I will now cut one of these pills in two," said Holmes, and drawing his
penknife he suited the action to the word. "One half we return into the box
for future purposes. The other half I will place in this wineglass, in which
is a teaspoonful of water. You perceive that our friend, the doctor, is
right, and that it readily dissolves."
"This may be very interesting," said Lestrade, in the injured tone of one
who suspects that he is being laughed at; "I cannot see, however, what it has
to do with the death of Mr. Joseph Stangerson."
"Patience, my friend, patience! You will find in time that it has
everything to do with it. I shall now add a little milk to make the mixture
palatable, and on presenting it to the dog we find that he laps it up readily
enough."
As he spoke he turned the contents of the wineglass into a saucer and
placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked it dry. Sherlock
Holmes's earnest demeanour had so far convinced us that we all sat in silence,
watching the animal intently, and expecting some startling effect. None such
appeared, however. The dog continued to lie stretched upon the cushion,
breathing in a laboured way, but apparently neither the better nor the worse
for its draught.
Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute without
result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment appeared upon
his features. He gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers upon the table, and
showed every other symptom of acute impatience. So great was his emotion that
I felt sincerely sorry for him, while the two detectives smiled derisively, by
no means displeased at this check which he had met.
"It can't be a coincidence," he cried, at last springing from his chair
and pacing wildly up and down the room; "it is impossible that it should be a
mere coincidence. The very pills which I suspected in the case of Drebber are
actually found after the death of Stangerson. And yet they are inert. What
can it mean? Surely my whole chain of reasoning cannot have been false. It
is impossible! And yet this wretched dog is none the worse. Ah, I have it!
I have it!" With a perfect shriek of delight he rushed to the box, cut the
other pill in two, dissolved it, added milk, and presented it to the terrier.
The unfortunate creature's tongue seemed hardly to have been moistened in it
before it gave a convulsive shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid and
lifeless as if it had been struck by lightning.
Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from his
forehead. "I should have more faith," he said; "I ought to know by this time
that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it
invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation. Of the
two pills in that box, one was of the most deadly poison, and the other was
entirely harmless. I ought to have known that before ever I saw the box at
all."
This last statement appeared to me to be so startling that I could hardly
believe that he was in his sober senses. There was the dead dog, however, to
prove that his conjecture had been correct. It seemed to me that the mists in
my own mind were gradually clearing away, and I began to have a dim, vague
perception of the truth.
"All this seems strange to you," continued Holmes, "because you failed at
the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the single real clue
which was presented to you. I had the good fortune to seize upon that, and
everything which has occurred since then has served to confirm my original
supposition, and, indeed, was the logical sequence of it. Hence things which
have perplexed you and made the case more obscure have served to enlighten me
and to strengthen my conclusions. It is a mistake to confound strangeness
with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious,
because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be
drawn. This murder would have been infinitely more difficult to unravel had
the body of the victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any of
those outre and sensational accompaniments which have rendered it remarkable.
These strange details, far from making the case more difficult, have really
had the effect of making it less so."
Mr. Gregson, who had listened to this address with considerable
impatience, could contain himself no longer. "Look here, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes," he said, "we are all ready to acknowledge that you are a smart man,
and that you have your own methods of working. We want something more than
mere theory and preaching now, though. It is a case of taking the man. I
have made my case out, and it seems I was wrong. Young Charpentier could not
have been engaged in this second affair. Lestrade went after his man,
Stangerson, and it appears that he was wrong too. You have thrown out hints
here, and hints there, and seem to know more than we do, but the time has come
when we feel that we have a right to ask you straight how much you do know of
the business. Can you name the man who did it?"
"I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right, sir," remarked Lestrade.
"We have both tried, and we have both failed. You have remarked more than
once since I have been in the room that you had all the evidence which you
require. Surely you will not withhold it any longer."
"Any delay in arresting the assassin," I observed, "might give him time
to perpetrate some fresh atrocity."
Thus pressed by us all, Holmes showed signs of irresolution. He
continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his chest and his
brows drawn down, as was his habit when lost in thought.
"There will be no more murders," he said at last, stopping abruptly and
facing us. "You can put that consideration out of the question. You have
asked me if I know the name of the assassin. I do. The mere knowing of his
name is a small thing, however, compared with the power of laying our hands
upon him. This I expect very shortly to do. I have good hopes of managing it
through my own arrangements; but it is a thing which needs delicate handling,
for we have a shrewd and desperate man to deal with, who is supported, as I
have had occasion to prove, by another who is as clever as himself. As long
as this man has no idea that anyone can have a clue there is some chance of
securing him; but if he had the slightest suspicion, he would change his name,
and vanish in an instant among the four million inhabitants of this great
city. Without meaning to hurt either of your feelings, I am bound to say that
I consider these men to be more than a match for the official force, and that
is why I have not asked your assistance. If I fail, I shall, of course, incur
all the blame due to this omission; but that I am prepared for. At present I
am ready to promise that the instant that I can communicate with you without
endangering my own combinations, I shall do so."
Gregson and Lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this assurance,
or by the depreciating allusion to the detective police. The former had
flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while the other's beady eyes
glistened with curiosity and resentment. Neither of them had time to speak,
however, before there was a tap at the door, and the spokesman of the street
Arabs, young Wiggins, introduced his insignificant and unsavoury person.
"Please, sir," he said, touching his forelock, "I have the cab
downstairs."
"Good boy," said Holmes, blandly. "Why don't you introduce this pattern
at Scotland Yard?" he continued, taking a pair of steel handcuffs from a
drawer. "See how beautifully the spring works. They fasten in an instant."
"The old pattern is good enough," remarked Lestrade, "if we can only find
the man to put them on."
"Very good, very good," said Holmes, smiling. "The cabman may as well
help me with my boxes. Just ask him to step up, Wiggins."
I was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he were about to
set out on a journey, since he had not said anything to me about it. There
was a small portmanteau in the room, and this he pulled out and began to
strap. He was busily engaged at it when the cabman entered the room.
"Just give me a help with this buckle, cabman," he said, kneeling over
his task, and never turning his head.
The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air, and put down
his hands to assist. At that instant there was a sharp click, the jangling of
metal, and Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet again.
"Gentlemen," he cried, with flashing eyes, "let me introduce you to Mr.
Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph Stangerson."
The whole thing occurred in a moment--so quickly that I had no time to
realize it. I have a vivid recollection of that instant, of Holmes's
triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the cabman's dazed, savage
face, as he glared at the glittering handcuffs, which had appeared as if by
magic upon his wrists. For a second or two we might have been a group of
statues. Then with an inarticulate roar of fury, the prisoner wrenched
himself free from Holmes's grasp, and hurled himself through the window.
Woodwork and glass gave way before him; but before he got quite through,
Gregson, Lestrade, and Holmes sprang upon him like so many staghounds. He was
dragged back into the room, and then commenced a terrific conflict. So
powerful and so fierce was he that the four of us were shaken off again and
again. He appeared to have the convulsive strength of a man in an epileptic
fit. His face and hands were terribly mangled by his passage through the
glass, but loss of blood had no effect in diminishing his resistance. It was
not until Lestrade succeeded in getting his hand inside his neckcloth and
half-strangling him that we made him realize that his struggles were of no
avail; and even then we felt no security until we had pinioned his feet as
well as his hands. That done, we rose to our feet breathless and panting.
"We have his cab," said Sherlock Holmes. "It will serve to take him to
Scotland Yard. And now, gentlemen," he continued, with a pleasant smile, "we
have reached the end of our little mystery. You are very welcome to put any
questions that you like to me now, and there is no danger that I will refuse
to answer them."
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