THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES THE VALLEY OF FEAR

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$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Tragedy of Birlstone; The Warning}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

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$Volume{}

$Date{}

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                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 1

                           THE TRAGEDY OF BIRLSTONE

                                  Chapter 1

                                 THE WARNING

"I AM inclined to think-- --" said I.

     "I should do so," Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.

     I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I'll

admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption.  "Really, Holmes," said

I severely, "you are a little trying at times."

     He was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to give any immediate

answer to my remonstrance.  He leaned upon his hand, with his untasted

breakfast before him, and he stared at the slip of paper which he had just

drawn from its envelope.  Then he took the envelope itself, held it up to the

light, and very carefully studied both the exterior and the flap.

     "It is Porlock's writing," said he thoughtfully.  "I can hardly doubt

that it is Porlock's writing, though I have seen it only twice before.  The

Greek e with the peculiar top flourish is distinctive.  But if it is Porlock,

then it must be something of the very first importance."

     He was speaking to himself rather than to me; but my vexation disappeared

in the interest which the words awakened.

     "Who then is Porlock?" I asked.

     "Porlock, Watson, is a nom-de-plume, a mere identification mark; but

behind it lies a shifty and evasive personality.  In a former letter he

frankly informed me that the name was not his own, and defied me ever to trace

him among the teeming millions of this great city.  Porlock is important, not

for himself, but for the great man with whom he is in touch.  Picture to

yourself the pilot fish with the shark, the jackal with the lion--anything

that is insignificant in companionship with what is formidable:  not only

formidable, Watson, but sinister--in the highest degree sinister.  That is

where he comes within my purview.  You have heard me speak of Professor

Moriarty?"

     "The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as-- --"

     "My blushes, Watson!" Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice.

     "I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public."

     "A touch!  A distinct touch!" cried Holmes.  "You are developing a

certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must learn to

guard myself.  But in calling Moriarty a criminal you are uttering libel in

the eyes of the law--and there lie the glory and the wonder of it!  The

greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of every deviltry, the controlling

brain of the underworld, a brain which might have made or marred the destiny

of nations --that's the man!  But so aloof is he from general suspicion, so

immune from criticism, so admirable in his management and self-effacement,

that for those very words that you have uttered he could hale you to a court

and emerge with your year's pension as a solatium for his wounded character.

Is he not the celebrated author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, a book which

ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that

there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it?  Is this a

man to traduce?  Foul-mouthed doctor and slandered professor--such would be

your respective roles!  That's genius, Watson.  But if I am spared by lesser

men, our day will surely come."

     "May I be there to see!" I exclaimed devoutly.  "But you were speaking of

this man Porlock."

     "Ah, yes--the so-called Porlock is a link in the chain some little way

from its great attachment.  Porlock is not quite a sound link--between

ourselves.  He is the only flaw in that chain so far as I have been able to

test it."

     "But no chain is stronger than its weakest link."

     "Exactly, my dear Watson!  Hence the extreme importance of Porlock.  Led

on by some rudimentary aspirations towards right, and encouraged by the

judicious stimulation of an occasional ten-pound note sent to him by devious

methods, he has once or twice given me advance information which has been of

value--that highest value which anticipates and prevents rather than avenges

crime.  I cannot doubt that, if we had the cipher, we should find that this

communication is of the nature that I indicate."

     Again Holmes flattened out the paper upon his unused plate.  I rose and,

leaning over him, stared down at the curious inscription, which ran as

follows:

                   534  C2  13  127  36  31  4  17  21  41

                     DOUGLAS  109  293  5  37  BIRLSTONE

                          26  BIRLSTONE  9  47  171

     "What do you make of it, Holmes?"

     "It is obviously an attempt to convey secret information."

     "But what is the use of a cipher message without the cipher?"

     "In this instance, none at all."

     "Why do you say 'in this instance'?"

     "Because there are many ciphers which I would read as easily as I do the

apocrypha of the agony column:  such crude devices amuse the intelligence

without fatiguing it.  But this is different.  It is clearly a reference to

the words in a page of some book.  Until I am told which page and which book I

am powerless."

     "But why 'Douglas' and 'Birlstone'?"

     "Clearly because those are words which were not contained in the page in

question."

     "Then why has he not indicated the book?"

     "Your native shrewdness, my dear Watson, that innate cunning which is the

delight of your friends, would surely prevent you from inclosing cipher and

message in the same envelope.  Should it miscarry, you are undone.  As it is,

both have to go wrong before any harm comes from it.  Our second post is now

overdue, and I shall be surprised if it does not bring us either a further

letter of explanation, or, as is more probable, the very volume to which these

figures refer."

     Holmes's calculation was fulfilled within a very few minutes by the

appearance of Billy, the page, with the very letter which we were expecting.

     "The same writing," remarked Holmes, as he opened the envelope, "and

actually signed," he added in an exultant voice as he unfolded the epistle.

"Come, we are getting on, Watson."  His brow clouded, however, as he glanced

over the contents.

     "Dear me, this is very disappointing!  I fear, Watson, that all our

expectations come to nothing.  I trust that the man Porlock will come to no

harm.

          "DEAR MR. HOLMES [he says]:

               "I will go no further in this matter.  It is too dangerous--he

          suspects me.  I can see that he suspects me.  He came to me quite

          unexpectedly after I had actually addressed this envelope with the

          intention of sending you the key to the cipher.  I was able to cover

          it up.  If he had seen it, it would have gone hard with me.  But I

          read suspicion in his eyes.  Please burn the cipher message, which

          can now be of no use to you.

                                                          "FRED PORLOCK."

     Holmes sat for some little time twisting this letter between his fingers,

and frowning, as he stared into the fire.

     "After all," he said at last, "there may be nothing in it.  It may be

only his guilty conscience.  Knowing himself to be a traitor, he may have read

the accusation in the other's eyes."

     "The other being, I presume, Professor Moriarty."

     "No less!  When any of that party talk about 'He' you know whom they

mean.  There is one predominant 'He' for all of them."

     "But what can he do?"

     "Hum!  That's a large question.  When you have one of the first brains of

Europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there are

infinite possibilities.  Anyhow, Friend Porlock is evidently scared out of his

senses--kindly compare the writing in the note to that upon its envelope;

which was done, he tells us, before this ill-omened visit.  The one is clear

and firm.  The other hardly legible."

     "Why did he write at all?  Why did he not simply drop it?"

     "Because he feared I would make some inquiry after him in that case, and

possibly bring trouble on him."

     "No doubt," said I.  "Of course."  I had picked up the original cipher

message and was bending my brows over it.  "It's pretty maddening to think

that an important secret may lie here on this slip of paper, and that it is

beyond human power to penetrate it."

     Sherlock Holmes had pushed away his untasted breakfast and lit the

unsavoury pipe which was the companion of his deepest meditations.  "I

wonder!" said he, leaning back and staring at the ceiling.  "Perhaps there are

points which have escaped your Machiavellian intellect.  Let us consider the

problem in the light of pure reason.  This man's reference is to a book.  That

is our point of departure."

     "A somewhat vague one."

     "Let us see then if we can narrow it down.  As I focus my mind upon it,

it seems rather less impenetrable.  What indications have we as to this book?"

     "None."

     "Well, well, it is surely not quite so bad as that.  The cipher message

begins with a large 534, does it not?  We may take it as a working hypothesis

that 534 is the particular page to which the cipher refers.  So our book has

already become a large book, which is surely something gained.  What other

indications have we as to the nature of this large book?  The next sign is C2.

What do you make of that, Watson?"

     "Chapter the second, no doubt."

     "Hardly that, Watson.  You will, I am sure, agree with me that if the

page be given, the number of the chapter is immaterial.  Also that if page 534

finds us only in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have

been really intolerable."

     "Column!" I cried.

     "Brilliant, Watson.  You are scintillating this morning.  If it is not

column, then I am very much deceived.  So now, you see, we begin to visualize

a large book, printed in double columns, which are each of a considerable

length, since one of the words is numbered in the document as the two hundred

and ninety-third.  Have we reached the limits of what reason can supply?"

     "I fear that we have."

     "Surely you do yourself an injustice.  One more coruscation, my dear

Watson --yet another brain-wave!  Had the volume been an unusual one, he would

have sent it to me.  Instead of that, he had intended, before his plans were

nipped, to send me the clue in this envelope.  He says so in his note.  This

would seem to indicate that the book is one which he thought I would have no

difficulty in finding for myself.  He had it--and he imagined that I would

have it, too.  In short, Watson, it is a very common book."

     "What you say certainly sounds plausible."

     "So we have contracted our field of search to a large book, printed in

double columns and in common use."

     "The Bible!" I cried triumphantly.

     "Good, Watson, good!  But not, if I may say so, quite good enough!  Even

if I accepted the compliment for myself, I could hardly name any volume which

would be less likely to lie at the elbow of one of Moriarty's associates.

Besides, the editions of Holy Writ are so numerous that he could hardly

suppose that two copies would have the same pagination.  This is clearly a

book which is standardized.  He knows for certain that his page 534 will

exactly agree with my page 534."

     "But very few books would correspond with that."

     "Exactly.  Therein lies our salvation.  Our search is narrowed down to

standardized books which anyone may be supposed to possess."

     "Bradshaw!"

     "There are difficulties, Watson.  The vocabulary of Bradshaw is nervous

and terse, but limited.  The selection of words would hardly lend itself to

the sending of general messages.  We will eliminate Bradshaw.  The dictionary

is, I fear, inadmissible for the same reason.  What then is left?"

     "An almanac!"

     "Excellent, Watson!  I am very much mistaken if you have not touched the

spot.  An almanac!  Let us consider the claims of Whitaker's Almanac.  It is

in common use.  It has the requisite number of pages.  It is in double column.

Though reserved in its earlier vocabulary, it becomes, if I remember right,

quite garrulous towards the end."  He picked the volume from his desk.  "Here

is page 534, column two, a substantial block of print dealing, I perceive,

with the trade and resources of British India.  Jot down the words, Watson!

Number thirteen is 'Mahratta.'  Not, I fear, a very auspicious beginning.

Number one hundred and twenty-seven is 'Government'; which at least makes

sense, though somewhat irrelevant to ourselves and Professor Moriarty.  Now

let us try again.  What does the Mahratta government do?  Alas!  the next word

is 'pig's-bristles.' We are undone, my good Watson!  It is finished!"

     He had spoken in jesting vein, but the twitching of his bushy eyebrows

bespoke his disappointment and irritation.  I sat helpless and unhappy,

staring into the fire.  A long silence was broken by a sudden exclamation from

Holmes, who dashed at a cupboard, from which he emerged with a second

yellow-covered volume in his hand.

     "We pay the price, Watson, for being too up-to-date!" he cried.  "We are

before our time, and suffer the usual penalties.  Being the seventh of

January, we have very properly laid in the new almanac.  It is more than

likely that Porlock took his message from the old one.  No doubt he would have

told us so had his letter of explanation been written.  Now let us see what

page 534 has in store for us.  Number thirteen is 'There,' which is much more

promising.  Number one hundred and twenty-seven is 'is'--'There is'"--Holmes's

eyes were gleaming with excitement, and his thin, nervous fingers twitched as

he counted the words--"'danger.'  Ha!  Ha!  Capital!  Put that down, Watson.

'There is danger--may--come--very--soon--one.'  Then we have the name

'Douglas'--'rich--

country--now--at--Birlstone--House--Birlstone--confidence--is--pressing.'

There, Watson!  What do you think of pure reason and its fruit?  If the

green-grocer had such a thing as a laurel wreath, I should send Billy round

for it."

     I was staring at the strange message which I had scrawled, as he

deciphered it, upon a sheet of foolscap on my knee.

     "What a queer, scrambling way of expressing his meaning!" said I.

     "On the contrary, he has done quite remarkably well," said Holmes.  "When

you search a single column for words with which to express your meaning, you

can hardly expect to get everything you want.  You are bound to leave

something to the intelligence of your correspondent.  The purport is perfectly

clear.  Some deviltry is intended against one Douglas, whoever he may be,

residing as stated, a rich country gentleman.  He is sure--'confidence' was as

near as he could get to 'confident'--that it is pressing.  There is our

result--and a very workmanlike little bit of analysis it was!"

     Holmes had the impersonal joy of the true artist in his better work, even

as he mourned darkly when it fell below the high level to which he aspired.

He was still chuckling over his success when Billy swung open the door and

Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard was ushered into the room.

     Those were the early days at the end of the '80's, when Alec MacDonald

was far from having attained the national fame which he has now achieved.  He

was a young but trusted member of the detective force, who had distinguished

himself in several cases which had been intrusted to him.  His tall, bony

figure gave promise of exceptional physical strength, while his great cranium

and deep-set, lustrous eyes spoke no less clearly of the keen intelligence

which twinkled out from behind his bushy eyebrows.  He was a silent, precise

man with a dour nature and a hard Aberdonian accent.

     Twice already in his career had Holmes helped him to attain success, his

own sole reward being the intellectual joy of the problem.  For this reason

the affection and respect of the Scotchman for his amateur colleague were

profound, and he showed them by the frankness with which he consulted Holmes

in every difficulty.  Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent

instantly recognizes genius, and MacDonald had talent enough for his

profession to enable him to perceive that there was no humiliation in seeking

the assistance of one who already stood alone in Europe, both in his gifts and

in his experience.  Holmes was not prone to friendship, but he was tolerant of

the big Scotchman, and smiled at the sight of him.

     "You are an early bird, Mr. Mac," said he.  "I wish you luck with your

worm.  I fear this means that there is some mischief afoot."

     "If you said 'hope' instead of 'fear,' it would be nearer the truth, I'm

thinking, Mr. Holmes," the inspector answered, with a knowing grin.  "Well,

maybe a wee nip would keep out the raw morning chill.  No, I won't smoke, I

thank you.  I'll have to be pushing on my way; for the early hours of a case

are the precious ones, as no man knows better than your own self.  But--but--

--"

     The inspector had stopped suddenly, and was staring with a look of

absolute amazement at a paper upon the table.  It was the sheet upon which I

had scrawled the enigmatic message.

     "Douglas!" he stammered.  "Birlstone!  What's this, Mr. Holmes?  Man,

it's witchcraft!  Where in the name of all that is wonderful did you get those

names?"

     "It is a cipher that Dr. Watson and I have had occasion to solve.  But

why--what's amiss with the names?"

     The inspector looked from one to the other of us in dazed astonishment.

"Just this," said he, "that Mr. Douglas of Birlstone Manor House was horribly

murdered last night!"

$Unique_ID{SLH00079}

$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Tragedy of Birlstone; Sherlock Holmes

Discourses}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

$Subject{}

$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

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                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 1

                           THE TRAGEDY OF BIRLSTONE

                                  Chapter 2

                          SHERLOCK HOLMES DISCOURSES

IT WAS one of those dramatic moments for which my friend existed.  It would be

an overstatement to say that he was shocked or even excited by the amazing

announcement.  Without having a tinge of cruelty in his singular composition,

he was undoubtedly callous from long overstimulation.  Yet, if his emotions

were dulled, his intellectual perceptions were exceedingly active.  There was

no trace then of the horror which I had myself felt at this curt declaration;

but his face showed rather the quiet and interested composure of the chemist

who sees the crystals falling into position from his oversaturated solution.

     "Remarkable!" said he.  "Remarkable!"

     "You don't seem surprised."

     "Interested, Mr. Mac, but hardly surprised.  Why should I be surprised?

I receive an anonymous communication from a quarter which I know to be

important, warning me that danger threatens a certain person.  Within an hour

I learn that this danger has actually materialized and that the person is

dead.  I am interested; but, as you observe, I am not surprised."

     In a few short sentences he explained to the inspector the facts about

the letter and the cipher.  MacDonald sat with his chin on his hands and his

great sandy eyebrows bunched into a yellow tangle.

     "I was going down to Birlstone this morning," said he.  "I had come to

ask you if you cared to come with me--you and your friend here.  But from what

you say we might perhaps be doing better work in London."

     "I rather think not," said Holmes.

     "Hang it all, Mr. Holmes!" cried the inspector.  "The papers will be full

of the Birlstone mystery in a day or two; but where's the mystery if there is

a man in London who prophesied the crime before ever it occurred?  We have

only to lay our hands on that man, and the rest will follow."

     "No doubt, Mr. Mac.  But how do you propose to lay your hands on the

so-called Porlock?"

     MacDonald turned over the letter which Holmes had handed him.  "Posted in

Camberwell--that doesn't help us much.  Name, you say, is assumed.  Not much

to go on, certainly.  Didn't you say that you have sent him money?"

     "Twice."

     "And how?"

     "In notes to Camberwell postoffice."

     "Did you ever trouble to see who called for them?"

     "No."

     The inspector looked surprised and a little shocked.  "Why not?"

     "Because I always keep faith.  I had promised when he first wrote that I

would not try to trace him."

     "You think there is someone behind him?"

     "I know there is."

     "This professor that I've heard you mention?"

     "Exactly!"

     Inspector MacDonald smiled, and his eyelid quivered as he glanced towards

me.  "I won't conceal from you, Mr. Holmes, that we think in the C. I. D. that

you have a wee bit of a bee in your bonnet over this professor.  I made some

inquiries myself about the matter.  He seems to be a very respectable,

learned, and talented sort of man."

     "I'm glad you've got so far as to recognize the talent."

     "Man, you can't but recognize it!  After I heard your view I made it my

business to see him.  I had a chat with him on eclipses.  How the talk got

that way I canna think; but he had out a reflector lantern and a globe, and

made it all clear in a minute.  He lent me a book; but I don't mind saying

that it was a bit above my head, though I had a good Aberdeen upbringing.

He'd have made a grand meenister with his thin face and gray hair and

solemn-like way of talking.  When he put his hand on my shoulder as we were

parting, it was like a father's blessing before you go out into the cold,

cruel world."

     Holmes chuckled and rubbed his hands.  "Great!" he said.  "Great!  Tell

me, Friend MacDonald, this pleasing and touching interview was, I suppose, in

the professor's study?"

     "That's so."

     "A fine room, is it not?"

     "Very fine--very handsome indeed, Mr. Holmes."

     "You sat in front of his writing desk?"

     "Just so."

     "Sun in your eyes and his face in the shadow?"

     "Well, it was evening; but I mind that the lamp was turned on my face."

     "It would be.  Did you happen to observe a picture over the professor's

head?"

     "I don't miss much, Mr. Holmes.  Maybe I learned that from you.  Yes, I

saw the picture--a young woman with her head on her hands, peeping at you

sideways."

     "That painting was by Jean Baptiste Greuze."

     The inspector endeavoured to look interested.

     "Jean Baptiste Greuze," Holmes continued, joining his finger tips and

leaning well back in his chair, "was a French artist who flourished between

the years 1750 and 1800.  I allude, of course, to his working career.  Modern

criticism has more than indorsed the high opinion formed of him by his

contemporaries."

     The inspector's eyes grew abstracted.  "Hadn't we better-- --" he said.

     "We are doing so," Holmes interrupted.  "All that I am saying has a very

direct and vital bearing upon what you have called the Birlstone Mystery.  In

fact, it may in a sense be called the very centre of it."

     MacDonald smiled feebly, and looked appealingly to me.  "Your thoughts

move a bit too quick for me, Mr. Holmes.  You leave out a link or two, and I

can't get over the gap.  What in the whole wide world can be the connection

between this dead painting man and the affair at Birlstone?"

     "All knowledge comes useful to the detective," remarked Holmes.  "Even

the trivial fact that in the year 1865 a picture by Greuze entitled La Jeune

Fille a l'Agneau fetched one million two hundred thousand francs--more than

forty thousand pounds--at the Portalis sale may start a train of reflection in

your mind."

     It was clear that it did.  The inspector looked honestly interested.

     "I may remind you," Holmes continued, "that the professor's salary can be

ascertained in several trustworthy books of reference.  It is seven hundred a

year."

     "Then how could he buy-- --"

     "Quite so!  How could he?"

     "Ay, that's remarkable," said the inspector thoughtfully.  "Talk away,

Mr. Holmes.  I'm just loving it.  It's fine!"

     Holmes smiled.  He was always warmed by genuine admiration--the

characteristic of the real artist.  "What about Birlstone?" he asked.

     "We've time yet," said the inspector, glancing at his watch.  "I've a cab

at the door, and it won't take us twenty minutes to Victoria.  But about this

picture:  I thought you told me once, Mr. Holmes, that you had never met

Professor Moriarty."

     "No, I never have."

     "Then how do you know about his rooms?"

     "Ah, that's another matter.  I have been three times in his rooms, twice

waiting for him under different pretexts and leaving before he came.  Once--

well, I can hardly tell about the once to an official detective.  It was on

the last occasion that I took the liberty of running over his papers--with the

most unexpected results."

     "You found something compromising?"

     "Absolutely nothing.  That was what amazed me.  However, you have now

seen the point of the picture.  It shows him to be a very wealthy man.  How

did he acquire wealth?  He is unmarried.  His younger brother is a station

master in the west of England.  His chair is worth seven hundred a year.  And

he owns a Greuze."

     "Well?"

     "Surely the inference is plain."

     "You mean that he has a great income and that he must earn it in an

illegal fashion?"

     "Exactly.  Of course I have other reasons for thinking so--dozens of

exiguous threads which lead vaguely up towards the centre of the web where the

poisonous, motionless creature is lurking.  I only mention the Greuze because

it brings the matter within the range of your own observation."

     "Well, Mr. Holmes, I admit that what you say is interesting:  it's more

than interesting--it's just wonderful.  But let us have it a little clearer if

you can.  Is it forgery, coining, burglary--where does the money come from?"

     "Have you ever read of Jonathan Wild?"

     "Well, the name has a familiar sound.  Someone in a novel, was he not?  I

don't take much stock of detectives in novels--chaps that do things and never

let you see how they do them.  That's just inspiration:  not business."

     "Jonathan Wild wasn't a detective, and he wasn't in a novel.  He was a

master criminal, and he lived last century--1750 or thereabouts."

     "Then he's no use to me.  I'm a practical man."

     "Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life would

be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day at the

annals of crime.  Everything comes in circles--even Professor Moriarty.

Jonathan Wild was the hidden force of the London criminals, to whom he sold

his brains and his organization on a fifteen per cent. commission.  The old

wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up.  It's all been done before, and will

be again.  I'll tell you one or two things about Moriarty which may interest

you."

     "You'll interest me, right enough."

     "I happen to know who is the first link in his chain--a chain with this

Napoleon-gone-wrong at one end, and a hundred broken fighting men,

pickpockets, blackmailers, and card sharpers at the other, with every sort of

crime in between.  His chief of staff is Colonel Sebastian Moran, as aloof and

guarded and inaccessible to the law as himself.  What do you think he pays

him?"

     "I'd like to hear."

     "Six thousand a year.  That's paying for brains, you see--the American

business principle.  I learned that detail quite by chance.  It's more than

the Prime Minister gets.  That gives you an idea of Moriarty's gains and of

the scale on which he works.  Another point:  I made it my business to hunt

down some of Moriarty's checks lately--just common innocent checks that he

pays his household bills with.  They were drawn on six different banks.  Does

that make any impression on your mind?"

     "Queer, certainly!  But what do you gather from it?"

     "That he wanted no gossip about his wealth.  No single man should know

what he had.  I have no doubt that he has twenty banking accounts; the bulk of

his fortune abroad in the Deutsche Bank or the Credit Lyonnais as likely as

not.  Sometime when you have a year or two to spare I commend to you the study

of Professor Moriarty."

     Inspector MacDonald had grown steadily more impressed as the conversation

proceeded.  He had lost himself in his interest.  Now his practical Scotch

intelligence brought him back with a snap to the matter in hand.

     "He can keep, anyhow," said he.  "You've got us side-tracked with your

interesting anecdotes, Mr. Holmes.  What really counts is your remark that

there is some connection between the professor and the crime.  That you get

from the warning received through the man Porlock.  Can we for our present

practical needs get any further than that?"

     "We may form some conception as to the motives of the crime.  It is, as I

gather from your original remarks, an inexplicable, or at least an

unexplained, murder.  Now, presuming that the source of the crime is as we

suspect it to be, there might be two different motives.  In the first place, I

may tell you that Moriarty rules with a rod of iron over his people.  His

discipline is tremendous.  There is only one punishment in his code.  It is

death.  Now we might suppose that this murdered man--this Douglas whose

approaching fate was known by one of the arch-criminal's subordinates--had in

some way betrayed the chief.  His punishment followed, and would be known to

all--if only to put the fear of death into them."

     "Well, that is one suggestion, Mr. Holmes."

     "The other is that it has been engineered by Moriarty in the ordinary

course of business.  Was there any robbery?"

     "I have not heard."

     "If so, it would, of course, be against the first hypothesis and in

favour of the second.  Moriarty may have been engaged to engineer it on a

promise of part spoils, or he may have been paid so much down to manage it.

Either is possible.  But whichever it may be, or if it is some third

combination, it is down at Birlstone that we must seek the solution.  I know

our man too well to suppose that he has left anything up here which may lead

us to him."

     "Then to Birlstone we must go!" cried MacDonald, jumping from his chair.

"My word!  it's later than I thought.  I can give you, gentlemen, five minutes

for preparation, and that is all."

     "And ample for us both," said Holmes, as he sprang up and hastened to

change from his dressing gown to his coat.  "While we are on our way, Mr. Mac,

I will ask you to be good enough to tell me all about it."

     "All about it" proved to be disappointingly little, and yet there was

enough to assure us that the case before us might well be worthy of the

expert's closest attention.  He brightened and rubbed his thin hands together

as he listened to the meagre but remarkable details.  A long series of sterile

weeks lay behind us, and here at last there was a fitting object for those

remarkable powers which, like all special gifts, become irksome to their owner

when they are not in use.  That razor brain blunted and rusted with inaction.

     Sherlock Holmes's eyes glistened, his pale cheeks took a warmer hue, and

his whole eager face shone with an inward light when the call for work reached

him.  Leaning forward in the cab, he listened intently to MacDonald's short

sketch of the problem which awaited us in Sussex.  The inspector was himself

dependent, as he explained to us, upon a scribbled account forwarded to him by

the milk train in the early hours of the morning.  White Mason, the local

officer, was a personal friend, and hence MacDonald had been notified much

more promptly than is usual at Scotland Yard when provincials need their

assistance.  It is a very cold scent upon which the Metropolitan expert is

generally asked to run.

          "DEAR INSPECTOR MACDONALD [said the letter which he read to us]:

               "Official requisition for your services is in separate

          envelope.  This is for your private eye.  Wire me what train in the

          morning you can get for Birlstone, and I will meet it--or have it

          met if I am too occupied.  This case is a snorter.  Don't waste a

          moment in getting started.  If you can bring Mr. Holmes, please do

          so; for he will find something after his own heart.  We would think

          the whole thing had been fixed up for theatrical effect if there

          wasn't a dead man in the middle of it.  My word!  it is a snorter."

     "Your friend seems to be no fool," remarked Holmes.

     "No, sir, White Mason is a very live man, if I am any judge."

     "Well, have you anything more?"

     "Only that he will give us every detail when we meet."

     "Then how did you get at Mr. Douglas and the fact that he had been

horribly murdered?"

     "That was in the inclosed official report.  It didn't say 'horrible':

that's not a recognized official term.  It gave the name John Douglas.  It

mentioned that his injuries had been in the head, from the discharge of a

shotgun.  It also mentioned the hour of the alarm, which was close on to

midnight last night.  It added that the case was undoubtedly one of murder,

but that no arrest had been made, and that the case was one which presented

some very perplexing and extraordinary features.  That's absolutely all we

have at present, Mr. Holmes."

     "Then, with your permission, we will leave it at that, Mr. Mac.  The

temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of

our profession.  I can see only two things for certain at present--a great

brain in London, and a dead man in Sussex.  It's the chain between that we are

going to trace."

$Unique_ID{SLH00080}

$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Tragedy of Birlstone; The Tragedy of Birlstone}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

$Subject{}

$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

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Plate B*0007802.scf}

                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 1

                           THE TRAGEDY OF BIRLSTONE

                                  Chapter 3

                           THE TRAGEDY OF BIRLSTONE

NOW for a moment I will ask leave to remove my own insignificant personality

and to describe events which occurred before we arrived upon the scene by the

light of knowledge which came to us afterwards.  Only in this way can I make

the reader appreciate the people concerned and the strange setting in which

their fate was cast.

     The village of Birlstone is a small and very ancient cluster of

half-timbered cottages on the northern border of the county of Sussex.  For

centuries it had remained unchanged; but within the last few years its

picturesque appearance and situation have attracted a number of well-to-do

residents, whose villas peep out from the woods around.  These woods are

locally supposed to be the extreme fringe of the great Weald forest, which

thins away until it reaches the northern chalk downs.  A number of small shops

have come into being to meet the wants of the increased population; so there

seems some prospect that Birlstone may soon grow from an ancient village into

a modern town.  It is the centre for a considerable area of country, since

Tunbridge Wells, the nearest place of importance, is ten or twelve miles to

the eastward, over the borders of Kent.

     About half a mile from the town, standing in an old park famous for its

huge beech trees, is the ancient Manor House of Birlstone.  Part of this

venerable building dates back to the time of the first crusade, when Hugo de

Capus built a fortalice in the centre of the estate, which had been granted to

him by the Red King.  This was destroyed by fire in 1543, and some of its

smoke-blackened corner stones were used when, in Jacobean times, a brick

country house rose upon the ruins of the feudal castle.

     The Manor House, with its many gables and its small diamond-paned

windows, was still much as the builder had left it in the early seventeenth

century.  Of the double moats which had guarded its more warlike predecessor,

the outer had been allowed to dry up, and served the humble function of a

kitchen garden.  The inner one was still there, and lay forty feet in breadth,

though now only a few feet in depth, round the whole house.  A small stream

fed it and continued beyond it, so that the sheet of water, though turbid, was

never ditchlike or unhealthy.  The ground floor windows were within a foot of

the surface of the water.

     The only approach to the house was over a drawbridge, the chains and

windlass of which had long been rusted and broken.  The latest tenants of the

Manor House had, however, with characteristic energy, set this right, and the

drawbridge was not only capable of being raised, but actually was raised every

evening and lowered every morning.  By thus renewing the custom of the old

feudal days the Manor House was converted into an island during the night--a

fact which had a very direct bearing upon the mystery which was soon to engage

the attention of all England.

     The house had been untenanted for some years and was threatening to

moulder into a picturesque decay when the Douglases took possession of it.

This family consisted of only two individuals--John Douglas and his wife.

Douglas was a remarkable man, both in character and in person.  In age he may

have been about fifty, with a strong-jawed, rugged face, a grizzling

moustache, peculiarly keen gray eyes, and a wiry, vigorous figure which had

lost nothing of the strength and activity of youth.  He was cheery and genial

to all, but somewhat offhand in his manners, giving the impression that he had

seen life in social strata on some far lower horizon than the county society

of Sussex.

     Yet, though looked at with some curiosity and reserve by his more

cultivated neighbours, he soon acquired a great popularity among the

villagers, subscribing handsomely to all local objects, and attending their

smoking concerts and other functions, where, having a remarkably rich tenor

voice, he was always ready to oblige with an excellent song.  He appeared to

have plenty of money, which was said to have been gained in the California

gold fields, and it was clear from his own talk and that of his wife that he

had spent a part of his life in America.

     The good impression which had been produced by his generosity and by his

democratic manners was increased by a reputation gained for utter indifference

to danger.  Though a wretched rider, he turned out at every meet, and took the

most amazing falls in his determination to hold his own with the best.  When

the vicarage caught fire he distinguished himself also by the fearlessness

with which he reentered the building to save property, after the local fire

brigade had given it up as impossible.  Thus it came about that John Douglas

of the Manor House had within five years won himself quite a reputation in

Birlstone.

     His wife, too, was popular with those who had made her acquaintance;

though, after the English fashion, the callers upon a stranger who settled in

the county without introductions were few and far between.  This mattered the

less to her, as she was retiring by disposition, and very much absorbed, to

all appearance, in her husband and her domestic duties.  It was known that she

was an English lady who had met Mr. Douglas in London, he being at that time a

widower.  She was a beautiful woman, tall, dark, and slender, some twenty

years younger than her husband; a disparity which seemed in no wise to mar the

contentment of their family life.

     It was remarked sometimes, however, by those who knew them best, that the

confidence between the two did not appear to be complete, since the wife was

either very reticent about her husband's past life, or else, as seemed more

likely, was imperfectly informed about it.  It had also been noted and

commented upon by a few observant people that there were signs sometimes of

some nerve-strain upon the part of Mrs. Douglas, and that she would display

acute uneasiness if her absent husband should ever be particularly late in his

return.  On a quiet countryside, where all gossip is welcome, this weakness of

the lady of the Manor House did not pass without remark, and it bulked larger

upon people's memory when the events arose which gave it a very special

significance.

     There was yet another individual whose residence under that roof was, it

is true, only an intermittent one, but whose presence at the time of the

strange happenings which will now be narrated brought his name prominently

before the public.  This was Cecil James Barker, of Hales Lodge, Hampstead.

     Cecil Barker's tall, loose-jointed figure was a familiar one in the main

street of Birlstone village; for he was a frequent and welcome visitor at the

Manor House.  He was the more noticed as being the only friend of the past

unknown life of Mr. Douglas who was ever seen in his new English surroundings.

Barker was himself an undoubted Englishman; but by his remarks it was clear

that he had first known Douglas in America and had there lived on intimate

terms with him.  He appeared to be a man of considerable wealth, and was

reputed to be a bachelor.

     In age he was rather younger than Douglas--forty-five at the most--a

tall, straight, broad-chested fellow with a clean-shaved, prize-fighter face,

thick, strong, black eyebrows, and a pair of masterful black eyes which might,

even without the aid of his very capable hands, clear a way for him through a

hostile crowd.  He neither rode nor shot, but spent his days in wandering

round the old village with his pipe in his mouth, or in driving with his host,

or in his absence with his hostess, over the beautiful countryside.  "An

easy-going, free-handed gentleman," said Ames, the butler.  "But, my word!  I

had rather not be the man that crossed him!"  He was cordial and intimate with

Douglas, and he was no less friendly with his wife--a friendship which more

than once seemed to cause some irritation to the husband, so that even the

servants were able to perceive his annoyance.  Such was the third person who

was one of the family when the catastrophe occurred.

     As to the other denizens of the old building, it will suffice out of a

large household to mention the prim, respectable, and capable Ames, and Mrs.

Allen, a buxom and cheerful person, who relieved the lady of some of her

household cares.  The other six servants in the house bear no relation to the

events of the night of January 6th.

     It was at eleven forty-five that the first alarm reached the small local

police station, in charge of Sergeant Wilson of the Sussex Constabulary.

Cecil Barker, much excited, had rushed up to the door and pealed furiously

upon the bell.  A terrible tragedy had occurred at the Manor House, and John

Douglas had been murdered.  That was the breathless burden of his message.  He

had hurried back to the house, followed within a few minutes by the police

sergeant, who arrived at the scene of the crime a little after twelve o'clock,

after taking prompt steps to warn the county authorities that something

serious was afoot.

     On reaching the Manor House, the sergeant had found the drawbridge down,

the windows lighted up, and the whole household in a state of wild confusion

and alarm.  The white-faced servants were huddling together in the hall, with

the frightened butler wringing his hands in the doorway.  Only Cecil Barker

seemed to be master of himself and his emotions; he had opened the door which

was nearest to the entrance and he had beckoned to the sergeant to follow him.

At that moment there arrived Dr. Wood, a brisk and capable general

practitioner from the village.  The three men entered the fatal room together,

while the horror-stricken butler followed at their heels, closing the door

behind him to shut out the terrible scene from the maid servants.

     The dead man lay on his back, sprawling with outstretched limbs in the

centre of the room.  He was clad only in a pink dressing gown, which covered

his night clothes.  There were carpet slippers on his bare feet.  The doctor

knelt beside him and held down the hand lamp which had stood on the table.

One glance at the victim was enough to show the healer that his presence could

be dispensed with.  The man had been horribly injured.  Lying across his chest

was a curious weapon, a shotgun with the barrel sawed off a foot in front of

the triggers.  It was clear that this had been fired at close range and that

he had received the whole charge in the face, blowing his head almost to

pieces.  The triggers had been wired together, so as to make the simultaneous

discharge more destructive.

     The country policeman was unnerved and troubled by the tremendous

responsibility which had come so suddenly upon him.  "We will touch nothing

until my superiors arrive," he said in a hushed voice, staring in horror at

the dreadful head.

     "Nothing has been touched up to now," said Cecil Barker.  "I'll answer

for that.  You see it all exactly as I found it."

     "When was that?"  The sergeant had drawn out his notebook.

     "It was just half-past eleven.  I had not begun to undress, and I was

sitting by the fire in my bedroom when I heard the report.  It was not very

loud --it seemed to be muffled.  I rushed down--I don't suppose it was thirty

seconds before I was in the room."

     "Was the door open?"

     "Yes, it was open.  Poor Douglas was lying as you see him.  His bedroom

candle was burning on the table.  It was I who lit the lamp some minutes

afterward."

     "Did you see no one?"

     "No.  I heard Mrs. Douglas coming down the stair behind me, and I rushed

out to prevent her from seeing this dreadful sight.  Mrs. Allen, the

housekeeper, came and took her away.  Ames had arrived, and we ran back into

the room once more."

     "But surely I have heard that the drawbridge is kept up all night."

     "Yes, it was up until I lowered it."

     "Then how could any murderer have got away?  It is out of the question!

Mr. Douglas must have shot himself."

     "That was our first idea.  But see!"  Barker drew aside the curtain, and

showed that the long, diamond-paned window was open to its full extent.  "And

look at this!"  He held the lamp down and illuminated a smudge of blood like

the mark of a boot-sole upon the wooden sill.  "Someone has stood there in

getting out."

     "You mean that someone waded across the moat?"

     "Exactly!"

     "Then if you were in the room within half a minute of the crime, he must

have been in the water at that very moment."

     "I have not a doubt of it.  I wish to heaven that I had rushed to the

window!  But the curtain screened it, as you can see, and so it never occurred

to me.  Then I heard the step of Mrs. Douglas, and I could not let her enter

the room.  It would have been too horrible."

     "Horrible enough!" said the doctor, looking at the shattered head and the

terrible marks which surrounded it.  "I've never seen such injuries since the

Birlstone railway smash."

     "But, I say," remarked the police sergeant, whose slow, bucolic common

sense was still pondering the open window.  "It's all very well your saying

that a man escaped by wading this moat, but what I ask you is, how did he ever

get into the house at all if the bridge was up?"

     "Ah, that's the question," said Barker.

     "At what o'clock was it raised?"

     "It was nearly six o'clock," said Ames, the butler.

     "I've heard," said the sergeant, "that it was usually raised at sunset.

That would be nearer half-past four than six at this time of year."

     "Mrs. Douglas had visitors to tea," said Ames.  "I couldn't raise it

until they went.  Then I wound it up myself."

     "Then it comes to this," said the sergeant:  "If anyone came from

outside-- if they did--they must have got in across the bridge before six and

been in hiding ever since, until Mr. Douglas came into the room after eleven."

     "That is so!  Mr. Douglas went round the house every night the last thing

before he turned in to see that the lights were right.  That brought him in

here.  The man was waiting and shot him.  Then he got away through the window

and left his gun behind him.  That's how I read it; for nothing else will fit

the facts."

     The sergeant picked up a card which lay beside the dead man on the floor.

The initials V. V. and under them the number 341 were rudely scrawled in ink

upon it.

     "What's this?" he asked, holding it up.

     Barker looked at it with curiosity.  "I never noticed it before," he

said.  "The murderer must have left it behind him."

     "V. V.--341.  I can make no sense of that."

     The sergeant kept turning it over in his big fingers.  "What's V. V.?

Somebody's initials, maybe.  What have you got there, Dr. Wood?"

     It was a good-sized hammer which had been lying on the rug in front of

the fireplace--a substantial, workmanlike hammer.  Cecil Barker pointed to a

box of brass-headed nails upon the mantelpiece.

     "Mr. Douglas was altering the pictures yesterday," he said.  "I saw him

myself, standing upon that chair and fixing the big picture above it.  That

accounts for the hammer."

     "We'd best put it back on the rug where we found it," said the sergeant,

scratching his puzzled head in his perplexity.  "It will want the best brains

in the force to get to the bottom of this thing.  It will be a London job

before it is finished."  He raised the hand lamp and walked slowly round the

room.  "Hullo!" he cried, excitedly, drawing the window curtain to one side.

"What o'clock were those curtains drawn?"

     "When the lamps were lit," said the butler.  "It would be shortly after

four."

     "Someone had been hiding here, sure enough."  He held down the light, and

the marks of muddy boots were very visible in the corner.  "I'm bound to say

this bears out your theory, Mr. Barker.  It looks as if the man got into the

house after four when the curtains were drawn, and before six when the bridge

was raised.  He slipped into this room, because it was the first that he saw.

There was no other place where he could hide, so he popped in behind this

curtain.  That all seems clear enough.  It is likely that his main idea was to

burgle the house; but Mr. Douglas chanced to come upon him, so he murdered him

and escaped."

     "That's how I read it," said Barker.  "But, I say, aren't we wasting

precious time?  Couldn't we start out and scour the country before the fellow

gets away?"

     The sergeant considered for a moment.

     "There are no trains before six in the morning; so he can't get away by

rail.  If he goes by road with his legs all dripping, it's odds that someone

will notice him.  Anyhow, I can't leave here myself until I am relieved.  But

I think none of you should go until we see more clearly how we all stand."

     The doctor had taken the lamp and was narrowly scrutinizing the body.

"What's this mark?" he asked.  "Could this have any connection with the

crime?"

     The dead man's right arm was thrust out from his dressing gown, and

exposed as high as the elbow.  About halfway up the forearm was a curious

brown design, a triangle inside a circle, standing out in vivid relief upon

the lard-coloured skin.

     "It's not tattooed," said the doctor, peering through his glasses.  "I

never saw anything like it.  The man has been branded at some time as they

brand cattle.  What is the meaning of this?"

     "I don't profess to know the meaning of it," said Cecil Barker; "but I

have seen the mark on Douglas many times this last ten years."

     "And so have I," said the butler.  "Many a time when the master has

rolled up his sleeves I have noticed that very mark.  I've often wondered what

it could be."

     "Then it has nothing to do with the crime, anyhow," said the sergeant.

"But it's a rum thing all the same.  Everything about this case is rum.  Well,

what is it now?"

     The butler had given an exclamation of astonishment and was pointing at

the dead man's outstretched hand.

     "They've taken his wedding ring!" he gasped.

     "What!"

     "Yes, indeed.  Master always wore his plain gold wedding ring on the

little finger of his left hand.  That ring with the rough nugget on it was

above it, and the twisted snake ring on the third finger.  There's the nugget

and there's the snake, but the wedding ring is gone."

     "He's right," said Barker.

     "Do you tell me," said the sergeant, "that the wedding ring was below the

other?"

     "Always!"

     "Then the murderer, or whoever it was, first took off this ring you call

the nugget ring, then the wedding ring, and afterwards put the nugget ring

back again."

     "That is so!"

     The worthy country policeman shook his head.  "Seems to me the sooner we

get London on to this case the better," said he.  "White Mason is a smart man.

No local job has ever been too much for White Mason.  It won't be long now

before he is here to help us.  But I expect we'll have to look to London

before we are through.  Anyhow, I'm not ashamed to say that it is a deal too

thick for the likes of me."

$Unique_ID{SLH00081}

$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Tragedy of Birlstone; Darkness}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

$Subject{}

$Journal{}

$Volume{}

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Plate B*0007802.scf}

                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 1

                           THE TRAGEDY OF BIRLSTONE

                                  Chapter 4

                                   DARKNESS

AT THREE in the morning the chief Sussex detective, obeying the urgent call

from Sergeant Wilson of Birlstone, arrived from headquarters in a light

dog-cart behind a breathless trotter.  By the five-forty train in the morning

he had sent his message to Scotland Yard, and he was at the Birlstone station

at twelve o'clock to welcome us.  White Mason was a quiet, comfortable-looking

person in a loose tweed suit, with a clean-shaved, ruddy face, a stoutish

body, and powerful bandy legs adorned with gaiters, looking like a small

farmer, a retired gamekeeper, or anything upon earth except a very favourable

specimen of the provincial criminal officer.

     "A real downright snorter, Mr. MacDonald!" he kept repeating.  "We'll

have the pressmen down like flies when they understand it.  I'm hoping we will

get our work done before they get poking their noses into it and messing up

all the trails.  There has been nothing like this that I can remember.  There

are some bits that will come home to you, Mr. Holmes, or I am mistaken.  And

you also, Dr. Watson; for the medicos will have a word to say before we

finish.  Your room is at the Westville Arms.  There's no other place; but I

hear that it is clean and good.  The man will carry your bags.  This way,

gentlemen, if you please."

     He was a very bustling and genial person, this Sussex detective.  In ten

minutes we had all found our quarters.  In ten more we were seated in the

parlour of the inn and being treated to a rapid sketch of those events which

have been outlined in the previous chapter.  MacDonald made an occasional

note; while Holmes sat absorbed, with the expression of surprised and reverent

admiration with which the botanist surveys the rare and precious bloom.

     "Remarkable!" he said, when the story was unfolded, "most remarkable!  I

can hardly recall any case where the features have been more peculiar."

     "I thought you would say so, Mr. Holmes," said White Mason in great

delight.  "We're well up with the times in Sussex.  I've told you now how

matters were, up to the time when I took over from Sergeant Wilson between

three and four this morning.  My word!  I made the old mare go!  But I need

not have been in such a hurry, as it turned out; for there was nothing

immediate that I could do.  Sergeant Wilson had all the facts.  I checked them

and considered them and maybe added a few of my own."

     "What were they?" asked Holmes eagerly.

     "Well, I first had the hammer examined.  There was Dr. Wood there to help

me.  We found no signs of violence upon it.  I was hoping that if Mr. Douglas

defended himself with the hammer, he might have left his mark upon the

murderer before he dropped it on the mat.  But there was no stain."

     "That, of course, proves nothing at all," remarked Inspector MacDonald.

"There has been many a hammer murder and no trace on the hammer."

     "Quite so.  It doesn't prove it wasn't used.  But there might have been

stains, and that would have helped us.  As a matter of fact there were none.

Then I examined the gun.  They were buckshot cartridges, and, as Sergeant

Wilson pointed out, the triggers were wired together so that, if you pulled on

the hinder one, both barrels were discharged.  Whoever fixed that up had made

up his mind that he was going to take no chances of missing his man.  The

sawed gun was not more than two foot long--one could carry it easily under

one's coat.  There was no complete maker's name; but the printed letters P-E-N

were on the fluting between the barrels, and the rest of the name had been cut

off by the saw."

     "A big P with a flourish above it, E and N smaller?" asked Holmes.

     "Exactly."

     "Pennsylvania Small Arms Company--well known American firm," said Holmes.

     White Mason gazed at my friend as the little village practitioner looks

at the Harley Street specialist who by a word can solve the difficulties that

perplex him.

     "That is very helpful, Mr. Holmes.  No doubt you are right.  Wonderful!

Wonderful!  Do you carry the names of all the gun makers in the world in your

memory?"

     Holmes dismissed the subject with a wave.

     "No doubt it is an American shotgun," White Mason continued.  "I seem to

have read that a sawed-off shotgun is a weapon used in some parts of America.

Apart from the name upon the barrel, the idea had occurred to me.  There is

some evidence, then, that this man who entered the house and killed its master

was an American."

     MacDonald shook his head.  "Man, you are surely travelling overfast,"

said he.  "I have heard no evidence yet that any stranger was ever in the

house at all."

     "The open window, the blood on the sill, the queer card, the marks of

boots in the corner, the gun!"

     "Nothing there that could not have been arranged.  Mr. Douglas was an

American, or had lived long in America.  So had Mr. Barker.  You don't need to

import an American from outside in order to account for American doings."

     "Ames, the butler-- --"

     "What about him?  Is he reliable?"

     "Ten years with Sir Charles Chandos--as solid as a rock.  He has been

with Douglas ever since he took the Manor House five years ago.  He has never

seen a gun of this sort in the house."

     "The gun was made to conceal.  That's why the barrels were sawed.  It

would fit into any box.  How could he swear there was no such gun in the

house?"

     "Well, anyhow, he had never seen one."

     MacDonald shook his obstinate Scotch head.  "I'm not convinced yet that

there was ever anyone in the house," said he.  "I'm asking you to conseedar"

(his accent became more Aberdonian as he lost himself in his argument) "I'm

asking you to conseedar what it involves if you suppose that this gun was ever

brought into the house, and that all these strange things were done by a

person from outside.  Oh, man, it's just inconceivable!  It's clean against

common sense!  I put it to you, Mr. Holmes, judging it by what we have heard."

     "Well, state your case, Mr. Mac," said Holmes in his most judicial style.

     "The man is not a burglar, supposing that he ever existed.  The ring

business and the card point to premeditated murder for some private reason.

Very good.  Here is a man who slips into a house with the deliberate intention

of committing murder.  He knows, if he knows anything, that he will have a

deeficulty in making his escape, as the house is surrounded with water.  What

weapon would he choose?  You would say the most silent in the world.  Then he

could hope when the deed was done to slip quickly from the window, to wade the

moat, and to get away at his leisure.  That's understandable.  But is it

understandable that he should go out of his way to bring with him the most

noisy weapon he could select, knowing well that it will fetch every human

being in the house to the spot as quick as they can run, and that it is all

odds that he will be seen before he can get across the moat?  Is that

credible, Mr. Holmes?"

     "Well, you put the case strongly," my friend replied thoughtfully.  "It

certainly needs a good deal of justification.  May I ask, Mr. White Mason,

whether you examined the farther side of the moat at once to see if there were

any signs of the man having climbed out from the water?"

     "There were no signs, Mr. Holmes.  But it is a stone ledge, and one could

hardly expect them."

     "No tracks or marks?"

     "None."

     "Ha!  Would there be any objection, Mr. White Mason, to our going down to

the house at once?  There may possibly be some small point which might be

suggestive."

     "I was going to propose it, Mr. Holmes; but I thought it well to put you

in touch with all the facts before we go.  I suppose if anything should strike

you-- --" White Mason looked doubtfully at the amateur.

     "I have worked with Mr. Holmes before," said Inspector MacDonald.  "He

plays the game."

     "My own idea of the game, at any rate," said Holmes, with a smile.  "I go

into a case to help the ends of justice and the work of the police.  If I have

ever separated myself from the official force, it is because they have first

separated themselves from me.  I have no wish ever to score at their expense.

At the same time, Mr. White Mason, I claim the right to work in my own way and

give my results at my own time--complete rather than in stages."

     "I am sure we are honoured by your presence and to show you all we know,

" said White Mason cordially.  "Come along, Dr. Watson, and when the time

comes we'll all hope for a place in your book."

     We walked down the quaint village street with a row of pollarded elms on

each side of it.  Just beyond were two ancient stone pillars, weather-stained

and lichen-blotched, bearing upon their summits a shapeless something which

had once been the rampant lion of Capus of Birlstone.  A short walk along the

winding drive with such sward and oaks around it as one only sees in rural

England, then a sudden turn, and the long, low Jacobean house of dingy,

liver-coloured brick lay before us, with an old-fashioned garden of cut yews

on each side of it.  As we approached it, there was the wooden drawbridge and

the beautiful broad moat as still and luminous as quicksilver in the cold,

winter sunshine.

     Three centuries had flowed past the old Manor House, centuries of births

and of homecomings, of country dances and of the meetings of fox hunters.

Strange that now in its old age this dark business should have cast its shadow

upon the venerable walls!  And yet those strange, peaked roofs and quaint,

overhung gables were a fitting covering to grim and terrible intrigue.  As I

looked at the deep-set windows and the long sweep of the dull-coloured,

water-lapped front, I felt that no more fitting scene could be set for such a

tragedy.

     "That's the window," said White Mason, "that one on the immediate right

of the drawbridge.  It's open just as it was found last night."

     "It looks rather narrow for a man to pass."

     "Well, it wasn't a fat man, anyhow.  We don't need your deductions, Mr.

Holmes, to tell us that.  But you or I could squeeze through all right."

     Holmes walked to the edge of the moat and looked across.  Then he

examined the stone ledge and the grass border beyond it.

     "I've had a good look, Mr. Holmes," said White Mason.  "There is nothing

there, no sign that anyone has landed--but why should he leave any sign?"

     "Exactly.  Why should he?  Is the water always turbid?"

     "Generally about this colour.  The stream brings down the clay."

     "How deep is it?"

     "About two feet at each side and three in the middle."

     "So we can put aside all idea of the man having been drowned in

crossing."

     "No, a child could not be drowned in it."

     We walked across the drawbridge, and were admitted by a quaint, gnarled,

dried-up person, who was the butler, Ames.  The poor old fellow was white and

quivering from the shock.  The village sergeant, a tall, formal, melancholy

man, still held his vigil in the room of Fate.  The doctor had departed.

     "Anything fresh, Sergeant Wilson?" asked White Mason.

     "No, sir."

     "Then you can go home.  You've had enough.  We can send for you if we

want you.  The butler had better wait outside.  Tell him to warn Mr. Cecil

Barker, Mrs. Douglas, and the housekeeper that we may want a word with them

presently.  Now, gentlemen, perhaps you will allow me to give you the views I

have formed first, and then you will be able to arrive at your own."

     He impressed me, this country specialist.  He had a solid grip of fact

and a cool, clear, common-sense brain, which should take him some way in his

profession.  Holmes listened to him intently, with no sign of that impatience

which the official exponent too often produced.

     "Is it suicide, or is it murder--that's our first question, gentlemen, is

it not?  If it were suicide, then we have to believe that this man began by

taking off his wedding ring and concealing it; that he then came down here in

his dressing gown, trampled mud into a corner behind the curtain in order to

give the idea someone had waited for him, opened the window, put blood on

the-- --"

     "We can surely dismiss that," said MacDonald.

     "So I think.  Suicide is out of the question.  Then a murder has been

done.  What we have to determine is, whether it was done by someone outside or

inside the house."

     "Well, let's hear the argument."

     "There are considerable difficulties both ways, and yet one or the other

it must be.  We will suppose first that some person or persons inside the

house did the crime.  They got this man down here at a time when everything

was still and yet no one was asleep.  They then did the deed with the queerest

and noisiest weapon in the world so as to tell everyone what had happened--a

weapon that was never seen in the house before.  That does not seem a very

likely start, does it?"

     "No, it does not."

     "Well, then, everyone is agreed that after the alarm was given only a

minute at the most had passed before the whole household--not Mr. Cecil Barker

alone, though he claims to have been the first, but Ames and all of them were

on the spot.  Do you tell me that in that time the guilty person managed to

make footmarks in the corner, open the window, mark the sill with blood, take

the wedding ring off the dead man's finger, and all the rest of it?  It's

impossible!"

     "You put it very clearly," said Holmes.  "I am inclined to agree with

you."

     "Well, then, we are driven back to the theory that it was done by someone

from outside.  We are still faced with some big difficulties; but anyhow they

have ceased to be impossibilities.  The man got into the house between

four-thirty and six; that is to say, between dusk and the time when the bridge

was raised.  There had been some visitors, and the door was open; so there was

nothing to prevent him.  He may have been a common burglar, or he may have had

some private grudge against Mr. Douglas.  Since Mr. Douglas has spent most of

his life in America, and this shotgun seems to be an American weapon, it would

seem that the private grudge is the more likely theory.  He slipped into this

room because it was the first he came to, and he hid behind the curtain.

There he remained until past eleven at night.  At that time Mr. Douglas

entered the room.  It was a short interview, if there were any interview at

all; for Mrs. Douglas declares that her husband had not left her more than a

few minutes when she heard the shot."

     "The candle shows that," said Holmes.

     "Exactly.  The candle, which was a new one, is not burned more than half

an inch.  He must have placed it on the table before he was attacked;

otherwise, of course, it would have fallen when he fell.  This shows that he

was not attacked the instant that he entered the room.  When Mr. Barker

arrived the candle was lit and the lamp was out."

     "That's all clear enough."

     "Well, now, we can reconstruct things on those lines.  Mr. Douglas enters

the room.  He puts down the candle.  A man appears from behind the curtain.

He is armed with this gun.  He demands the wedding ring--Heaven only knows

why, but so it must have been.  Mr. Douglas gave it up.  Then either in cold

blood or in the course of a struggle--Douglas may have gripped the hammer that

was found upon the mat--he shot Douglas in this horrible way.  He dropped his

gun and also it would seem this queer card--V. V. 341, whatever that may

mean-- and he made his escape through the window and across the moat at the

very moment when Cecil Barker was discovering the crime.  How's that, Mr.

Holmes?"

     "Very interesting, but just a little unconvincing."

     "Man, it would be absolute nonsense if it wasn't that anything else is

even worse!" cried MacDonald.  "Somebody killed the man, and whoever it was I

could clearly prove to you that he should have done it some other way.  What

does he mean by allowing his retreat to be cut off like that?  What does he

mean by using a shotgun when silence was his one chance of escape?  Come, Mr.

Holmes, it's up to you to give us a lead, since you say Mr. White Mason's

theory is unconvincing."

     Holmes had sat intently observant during this long discussion, missing no

word that was said, with his keen eyes darting to right and to left, and his

forehead wrinkled with speculation.

     "I should like a few more facts before I get so far as a theory, Mr.

Mac," said he, kneeling down beside the body.  "Dear me! these injuries are

really appalling.  Can we have the butler in for a moment?  . . . Ames, I

understand that you have often seen this very unusual mark--a branded triangle

inside a circle--upon Mr. Douglas's forearm?"

     "Frequently, sir."

     "You never heard any speculation as to what it meant?"

     "No, sir."

     "It must have caused great pain when it was inflicted.  It is undoubtedly

a burn.  Now, I observe, Ames, that there is a small piece of plaster at the

angle of Mr. Douglas's jaw.  Did you observe that in life?"

     "Yes, sir, he cut himself in shaving yesterday morning."

     "Did you ever know him to cut himself in shaving before?"

     "Not for a very long time, sir."

     "Suggestive!" said Holmes.  "It may, of course, be a mere coincidence, or

it may point to some nervousness which would indicate that he had reason to

apprehend danger.  Had you noticed anything unusual in his conduct, yesterday,

Ames?"

     "It struck me that he was a little restless and excited, sir."

     "Ha!  The attack may not have been entirely unexpected.  We do seem to

make a little progress, do we not?  Perhaps you would rather do the

questioning, Mr. Mac?"

     "No, Mr. Holmes, it's in better hands than mine."

     "Well, then, we will pass to this card--V. V. 341.  It is rough

cardboard.  Have you any of the sort in the house?"

     "I don't think so."

     Holmes walked across to the desk and dabbed a little ink from each bottle

on to the blotting paper.  "It was not printed in this room," he said; "this

is black ink and the other purplish.  It was done by a thick pen, and these

are fine.  No, it was done elsewhere, I should say.  Can you make anything of

the inscription, Ames?"

     "No, sir, nothing."

     "What do you think, Mr. Mac?"

     "It gives me the impression of a secret society of some sort; the same

with his badge upon the forearm."

     "That's my idea, too," said White Mason.

     "Well, we can adopt it as a working hypothesis and then see how far our

difficulties disappear.  An agent from such a society makes his way into the

house, waits for Mr. Douglas, blows his head nearly off with this weapon, and

escapes by wading the moat, after leaving a card beside the dead man, which

will, when mentioned in the papers, tell other members of the society that

vengeance has been done.  That all hangs together.  But why this gun, of all

weapons?"

     "Exactly."

     "And why the missing ring?"

     "Quite so."

     "And why no arrest?  It's past two now.  I take it for granted that since

dawn every constable within forty miles has been looking out for a wet

stranger?"

     "That is so, Mr. Holmes."

     "Well, unless he has a burrow close by or a change of clothes ready, they

can hardly miss him.  And yet they have missed him up to now!"  Holmes had

gone to the window and was examining with his lens the blood mark on the sill.

"It is clearly the tread of a shoe.  It is remarkably broad; a splay-foot, one

would say.  Curious, because, so far as one can trace any footmark in this

mud-stained corner, one would say it was a more shapely sole.  However, they

are certainly very indistinct.  What's this under the side table?"

     "Mr. Douglas's dumb-bells," said Ames.

     "Dumb-bell--there's only one.  Where's the other?"

     "I don't know, Mr. Holmes.  There may have been only one.  I have not

noticed them for months."

     "One dumb-bell-- --" Holmes said seriously; but his remarks were

interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

     A tall, sunburned, capable-looking, clean-shaved man looked in at us.  I

had no difficulty in guessing that it was the Cecil Barker of whom I had

heard.  His masterful eyes travelled quickly with a questioning glance from

face to face.

     "Sorry to interrupt your consultation," said he, "but you should hear the

latest news."

     "An arrest?"

     "No such luck.  But they've found his bicycle.  The fellow left his

bicycle behind him.  Come and have a look.  It is within a hundred yards of

the hall door."

     We found three or four grooms and idlers standing in the drive inspecting

a bicycle which had been drawn out from a clump of evergreens in which it had

been concealed.  It was a well used Rudge-Whitworth, splashed as from a

considerable journey.  There was a saddlebag with spanner and oilcan, but no

clue as to the owner.

     "It would be a grand help to the police," said the inspector, "if these

things were numbered and registered.  But we must be thankful for what we've

got.  If we can't find where he went to, at least we are likely to get where

he came from.  But what in the name of all that is wonderful made the fellow

leave it behind?  And how in the world has he got away without it?  We don't

seem to get a gleam of light in the case, Mr. Holmes."

     "Don't we?" my friend answered thoughtfully.  "I wonder!"

$Unique_ID{SLH00082}

$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Tragedy of Birlstone; The People of the Drama}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

$Subject{}

$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

$Log{Plate A*0007801.scf

Plate B*0007802.scf}

                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 1

                           THE TRAGEDY OF BIRLSTONE

                                  Chapter 5

                           THE PEOPLE OF THE DRAMA

"HAVE you seen all you want of the study?" asked White Mason as we reentered

the house.

     "For the time," said the inspector, and Holmes nodded.

     "Then perhaps you would now like to hear the evidence of some of the

people in the house.  We could use the dining room, Ames.  Please come

yourself first and tell us what you know."

     The butler's account was a simple and a clear one, and he gave a

convincing impression of sincerity.  He had been engaged five years before,

when Douglas first came to Birlstone.  He understood that Mr. Douglas was a

rich gentleman who had made his money in America.  He had been a kind and

considerate employer --not quite what Ames was used to, perhaps; but one can't

have everything.  He never saw any signs of apprehension in Mr. Douglas:  on

the contrary, he was the most fearless man he had ever known.  He ordered the

drawbridge to be pulled up every night because it was the ancient custom of

the old house, and he liked to keep the old ways up.

     Mr. Douglas seldom went to London or left the village; but on the day

before the crime he had been shopping at Tunbridge Wells.  He (Ames) had

observed some restlessness and excitement on the part of Mr. Douglas that day;

for he had seemed impatient and irritable, which was unusual with him.  He had

not gone to bed that night; but was in the pantry at the back of the house,

putting away the silver, when he heard the bell ring violently.  He heard no

shot; but it was hardly possible he would, as the pantry and kitchens were at

the very back of the house and there were several closed doors and a long

passage between.  The housekeeper had come out of her room, attracted by the

violent ringing of the bell.  They had gone to the front of the house

together.

     As they reached the bottom of the stair he had seen Mrs. Douglas coming

down it.  No, she was not hurrying; it did not seem to him that she was

particularly agitated.  Just as she reached the bottom of the stair Mr. Barker

had rushed out of the study.  He had stopped Mrs. Douglas and begged her to go

back.

     "For God's sake, go back to your room!" he cried.  "Poor Jack is dead!

You can do nothing.  For God's sake, go back!"

     After some persuasion upon the stairs Mrs. Douglas had gone back.  She

did not scream.  She made no outcry whatever.  Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper,

had taken her upstairs and stayed with her in the bedroom.  Ames and Mr.

Barker had then returned to the study, where they had found everything exactly

as the police had seen it.  The candle was not lit at that time; but the lamp

was burning.  They had looked out of the window; but the night was very dark

and nothing could be seen or heard.  They had then rushed out into the hall,

where Ames had turned the windlass which lowered the drawbridge.  Mr. Barker

had then hurried off to get the police.

     Such, in its essentials, was the evidence of the butler.

     The account of Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, was, so far as it went, a

corroboration of that of her fellow servant.  The housekeeper's room was

rather nearer to the front of the house than the pantry in which Ames had been

working.  She was preparing to go to bed when the loud ringing of the bell had

attracted her attention.  She was a little hard of hearing.  Perhaps that was

why she had not heard the shot; but in any case the study was a long way off.

She remembered hearing some sound which she imagined to be the slamming of a

door.  That was a good deal earlier--half an hour at least before the ringing

of the bell.  When Mr. Ames ran to the front she went with him.  She saw Mr.

Barker, very pale and excited, come out of the study.  He intercepted Mrs.

Douglas, who was coming down the stairs.  He entreated her to go back, and she

answered him, but what she said could not be heard.

     "Take her up!  Stay with her!" he had said to Mrs. Allen.

     She had therefore taken her to the bedroom, and endeavoured to soothe

her.  She was greatly excited, trembling all over, but made no other attempt

to go downstairs.  She just sat in her dressing gown by her bedroom fire, with

her head sunk in her hands.  Mrs. Allen stayed with her most of the night.  As

to the other servants, they had all gone to bed, and the alarm did not reach

them until just before the police arrived.  They slept at the extreme back of

the house, and could not possibly have heard anything.

     So far the housekeeper could add nothing on cross-examination save

lamentations and expressions of amazement.

     Cecil Barker succeeded Mrs. Allen as a witness.  As to the occurrences of

the night before, he had very little to add to what he had already told the

police.  Personally, he was convinced that the murderer had escaped by the

window.  The bloodstain was conclusive, in his opinion, on that point.

Besides, as the bridge was up, there was no other possible way of escaping.

He could not explain what had become of the assassin or why he had not taken

his bicycle, if it were indeed his.  He could not possibly have been drowned

in the moat, which was at no place more than three feet deep.

     In his own mind he had a very definite theory about the murder.  Douglas

was a reticent man, and there were some chapters in his life of which he never

spoke.  He had emigrated to America when he was a very young man.  He had

prospered well, and Barker had first met him in California, where they had

become partners in a successful mining claim at a place called Benito Canon.

They had done very well; but Douglas had suddenly sold out and started for

England.  He was a widower at that time.  Barker had afterwards realized his

money and come to live in London.  Thus they had renewed their friendship.

     Douglas had given him the impression that some danger was hanging over

his head, and he had always looked upon his sudden departure from California,

and also his renting a house in so quiet a place in England, as being

connected with this peril.  He imagined that some secret society, some

implacable organization, was on Douglas's track, which would never rest until

it killed him.  Some remarks of his had given him this idea; though he had

never told him what the society was, nor how he had come to offend it.  He

could only suppose that the legend upon the placard had some reference to this

secret society.

     "How long were you with Douglas in California?" asked Inspector

MacDonald.

     "Five years altogether."

     "He was a bachelor, you say?"

     "A widower."

     "Have you ever heard where his first wife came from?"

     "No, I remember his saying that she was of German extraction, and I have

seen her portrait.  She was a very beautiful woman.  She died of typhoid the

year before I met him."

     "You don't associate his past with any particular part of America?"

     "I have heard him talk of Chicago.  He knew that city well and had worked

there.  I have heard him talk of the coal and iron districts.  He had

travelled a good deal in his time."

     "Was he a politician?  Had this secret society to do with politics?"

     "No, he cared nothing about politics."

     "You have no reason to think it was criminal?"

     "On the contrary, I never met a straighter man in my life."

     "Was there anything curious about his life in California?"

     "He liked best to stay and to work at our claim in the mountains.  He

would never go where other men were if he could help it.  That's why I first

thought that someone was after him.  Then when he left so suddenly for Europe

I made sure that it was so.  I believe that he had a warning of some sort.

Within a week of his leaving half a dozen men were inquiring for him."

     "What sort of men?"

     "Well, they were a mighty hard-looking crowd.  They came up to the claim

and wanted to know where he was.  I told them that he was gone to Europe and

that I did not know where to find him.  They meant him no good--it was easy to

see that."

     "Were these men Americans--Californians?"

     "Well, I don't know about Californians.  They were Americans, all right.

But they were not miners.  I don't know what they were, and was very glad to

see their backs."

     "That was six years ago?"

     "Nearer seven."

     "And then you were together five years in California, so that this

business dates back not less than eleven years at the least?"

     "That is so."

     "It must be a very serious feud that would be kept up with such

earnestness for as long as that.  It would be no light thing that would give

rise to it."

     "I think it shadowed his whole life.  It was never quite out of his

mind."

     "But if a man had a danger hanging over him, and knew what it was, don't

you think he would turn to the police for protection?"

     "Maybe it was some danger that he could not be protected against.

There's one thing you should know.  He always went about armed.  His revolver

was never out of his pocket.  But, by bad luck, he was in his dressing gown

and had left it in the bedroom last night.  Once the bridge was up, I guess he

thought he was safe."

     "I should like these dates a little clearer," said MacDonald.  "It is

quite six years since Douglas left California.  You followed him next year,

did you not?"

     "That is so."

     "And he had been married five years.  You must have returned about the

time of his marriage."

     "About a month before.  I was his best man."

     "Did you know Mrs. Douglas before her marriage?"

     "No, I did not.  I had been away from England for ten years."

     "But you have seen a good deal of her since."

     Barker looked sternly at the detective.  "I have seen a good deal of him

since," he answered.  "If I have seen her, it is because you cannot visit a

man without knowing his wife.  If you imagine there is any connection-- --"

     "I imagine nothing, Mr. Barker.  I am bound to make every inquiry which

can bear upon the case.  But I mean no offense."

     "Some inquiries are offensive," Barker answered angrily.

     "It's only the facts that we want.  It is in your interest and everyone's

interest that they should be cleared up.  Did Mr. Douglas entirely approve

your friendship with his wife?"

     Barker grew paler, and his great, strong hands were clasped convulsively

together.  "You have no right to ask such questions!" he cried.  "What has

this to do with the matter you are investigating?"

     "I must repeat the question."

     "Well, I refuse to answer."

     "You can refuse to answer; but you must be aware that your refusal is in

itself an answer, for you would not refuse if you had not something to

conceal."

     Barker stood for a moment with his face set grimly and his strong black

eyebrows drawn low in intense thought.  Then he looked up with a smile.

"Well, I guess you gentlemen are only doing your clear duty after all, and I

have no right to stand in the way of it.  I'd only ask you not to worry Mrs.

Douglas over this matter; for she has enough upon her just now.  I may tell

you that poor Douglas had just one fault in the world, and that was his

jealousy.  He was fond of me--no man could be fonder of a friend.  And he was

devoted to his wife.  He loved me to come here, and was forever sending for

me.  And yet if his wife and I talked together or there seemed any sympathy

between us, a kind of wave of jealousy would pass over him, and he would be

off the handle and saying the wildest things in a moment.  More than once I've

sworn off coming for that reason, and then he would write me such penitent,

imploring letters that I just had to.  But you can take it from me, gentlemen,

if it was my last word, that no man ever had a more loving, faithful wife--and

I can say also no friend could be more loyal than I!"

     It was spoken with fervour and feeling, and yet Inspector MacDonald could

not dismiss the subject.

     "You are aware," said he, "that the dead man's wedding ring has been

taken from his finger?"

     "So it appears," said Barker.

     "What do you mean by 'appears'?  You know it as a fact."

     The man seemed confused and undecided.  "When I said 'appears' I meant

that it was conceivable that he had himself taken off the ring."

     "The mere fact that the ring should be absent, whoever may have removed

it, would suggest to anyone's mind, would it not, that the marriage and the

tragedy were connected?"

     Barker shrugged his broad shoulders.  "I can't profess to say what it

means," he answered.  "But if you mean to hint that it could reflect in any

way upon this lady's honour"--his eyes blazed for an instant, and then with an

evident effort he got a grip upon his own emotions--"well, you are on the

wrong track, that's all."

     "I don't know that I've anything else to ask you at present," said

MacDonald, coldly.

     "There was one small point," remarked Sherlock Holmes.  "When you entered

the room there was only a candle lighted on the table, was there not?"

     "Yes, that was so."

     "By its light you saw that some terrible incident had occurred?"

     "Exactly."

     "You at once rang for help?"

     "Yes."

     "And it arrived very speedily?"

     "Within a minute or so."

     "And yet when they arrived they found that the candle was out and that

the lamp had been lighted.  That seems very remarkable."

     Again Barker showed some signs of indecision.  "I don't see that it was

remarkable, Mr. Holmes," he answered after a pause.  "The candle threw a very

bad light.  My first thought was to get a better one.  The lamp was on the

table; so I lit it."

     "And blew out the candle?"

     "Exactly."

     Holmes asked no further question, and Barker, with a deliberate look from

one to the other of us, which had, as it seemed to me, something of defiance

in it, turned and left the room.

     Inspector MacDonald had sent up a note to the effect that he would wait

upon Mrs. Douglas in her room; but she had replied that she would meet us in

the dining room.  She entered now, a tall and beautiful woman of thirty,

reserved and self-possessed to a remarkable degree, very different from the

tragic and distracted figure I had pictured.  It is true that her face was

pale and drawn, like that of one who has endured a great shock; but her manner

was composed, and the finely moulded hand which she rested upon the edge of

the table was as steady as my own.  Her sad, appealing eyes travelled from one

to the other of us with a curiously inquisitive expression.  That questioning

gaze transformed itself suddenly into abrupt speech.

     "Have you found anything out yet?" she asked.

     Was it my imagination that there was an undertone of fear rather than of

hope in the question?

     "We have taken every possible step, Mrs. Douglas," said the inspector.

"You may rest assured that nothing will be neglected."

     "Spare no money," she said in a dead, even tone.  "It is my desire that

every possible effort should be made."

     "Perhaps you can tell us something which may throw some light upon the

matter."

     "I fear not; but all I know is at your service."

     "We have heard from Mr. Cecil Barker that you did not actually see--that

you were never in the room where the tragedy occurred?"

     "No, he turned me back upon the stairs.  He begged me to return to my

room."

     "Quite so.  You had heard the shot, and you had at once come down."

     "I put on my dressing gown and then came down."

     "How long was it after hearing the shot that you were stopped on the

stair by Mr. Barker?"

     "It may have been a couple of minutes.  It is so hard to reckon time at

such a moment.  He implored me not to go on.  He assured me that I could do

nothing.  Then Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, led me upstairs again.  It was all

like some dreadful dream."

     "Can you give us any idea how long your husband had been downstairs

before you heard the shot?"

     "No, I cannot say.  He went from his dressing room, and I did not hear

him go.  He did the round of the house every night, for he was nervous of

fire.  It is the only thing that I have ever known him nervous of."

     "That is just the point which I want to come to, Mrs. Douglas.  You have

known your husband only in England, have you not?"

     "Yes, we have been married five years."

     "Have you heard him speak of anything which occurred in America and might

bring some danger upon him?"

     Mrs. Douglas thought earnestly before she answered.  "Yes," she said at

last, "I have always felt that there was a danger hanging over him.  He

refused to discuss it with me.  It was not from want of confidence in

me--there was the most complete love and confidence between us--but it was out

of his desire to keep all alarm away from me.  He thought I should brood over

it if I knew all, and so he was silent."

     "How did you know it, then?"

     Mrs. Douglas's face lit with a quick smile.  "Can a husband ever carry

about a secret all his life and a woman who loves him have no suspicion of it?

I knew it by his refusal to talk about some episodes in his American life.  I

knew it by certain precautions he took.  I knew it by certain words he let

fall.  I knew it by the way he looked at unexpected strangers.  I was

perfectly certain that he had some powerful enemies, that he believed they

were on his track, and that he was always on his guard against them.  I was so

sure of it that for years I have been terrified if ever he came home later

than was expected."

     "Might I ask," asked Holmes, "what the words were which attracted your

attention?"

     "The Valley of Fear," the lady answered.  "That was an expression he has

used when I questioned him.  'I have been in the Valley of Fear.  I am not out

of it yet.'--'Are we never to get out of the Valley of Fear?' I have asked him

when I have seen him more serious than usual.  'Sometimes I think that we

never shall,' he has answered."

     "Surely you asked him what he meant by the Valley of Fear?"

     "I did; but his face would become very grave and he would shake his head.

'It is bad enough that one of us should have been in its shadow,' he said.

'Please God it shall never fall upon you!'  It was some real valley in which

he had lived and in which something terrible had occurred to him, of that I am

certain; but I can tell you no more."

     "And he never mentioned any names?"

     "Yes, he was delirious with fever once when he had his hunting accident

three years ago.  Then I remember that there was a name that came continually

to his lips.  He spoke it with anger and a sort of horror.  McGinty was the

name-- Bodymaster McGinty.  I asked him when he recovered who Bodymaster

McGinty was, and whose body he was master of.  'Never of mine, thank God!' he

answered with a laugh, and that was all I could get from him.  But there is a

connection between Bodymaster McGinty and the Valley of Fear."

     "There is one other point," said Inspector MacDonald.  "You met Mr.

Douglas in a boarding house in London, did you not, and became engaged to him

there?  Was there any romance, anything secret or mysterious, about the

wedding?"

     "There was romance.  There is always romance.  There was nothing

mysterious."

     "He had no rival?"

     "No, I was quite free."

     "You have heard, no doubt, that his wedding ring has been taken.  Does

that suggest anything to you?  Suppose that some enemy of his old life had

tracked him down and committed this crime, what possible reason could he have

for taking his wedding ring?"

     For an instant I could have sworn that the faintest shadow of a smile

flickered over the woman's lips.

     "I really cannot tell," she answered.  "It is certainly a most

extraordinary thing."

     "Well, we will not detain you any longer, and we are sorry to have put

you to this trouble at such a time," said the inspector.  "There are some

other points, no doubt; but we can refer to you as they arise."

     She rose, and I was again conscious of that quick, questioning glance

with which she had just surveyed us.  "What impression has my evidence made

upon you?"  The question might as well have been spoken.  Then, with a bow,

she swept from the room.

     "She's a beautiful woman--a very beautiful woman," said MacDonald

thoughtfully, after the door had closed behind her.  "This man Barker has

certainly been down here a good deal.  He is a man who might be attractive to

a woman.  He admits that the dead man was jealous, and maybe he knew best

himself what cause he had for jealousy.  Then there's that wedding ring.  You

can't get past that.  The man who tears a wedding ring off a dead man's-- --

What do you say to it, Mr. Holmes?"

     My friend had sat with his head upon his hands, sunk in the deepest

thought.  Now he rose and rang the bell.  "Ames," he said, when the butler

entered, "where is Mr. Cecil Barker now?"

     "I'll see, sir."

     He came back in a moment to say that Barker was in the garden.

     "Can you remember, Ames, what Mr. Barker had on his feet last night when

you joined him in the study?"

     "Yes, Mr. Holmes.  He had a pair of bedroom slippers.  I brought him his

boots when he went for the police."

     "Where are the slippers now?"

     "They are still under the chair in the hall."

     "Very good, Ames.  It is, of course, important for us to know which

tracks may be Mr. Barker's and which from outside."

     "Yes, sir.  I may say that I noticed that the slippers were stained with

blood--so indeed were my own."

     "That is natural enough, considering the condition of the room.  Very

good, Ames.  We will ring if we want you."

     A few minutes later we were in the study.  Holmes had brought with him

the carpet slippers from the hall.  As Ames had observed, the soles of both

were dark with blood.

     "Strange!" murmured Holmes, as he stood in the light of the window and

examined them minutely.  "Very strange indeed!"

     Stooping with one of his quick feline pounces, he placed the slipper upon

the blood mark on the sill.  It exactly corresponded.  He smiled in silence at

his colleagues.

     The inspector was transfigured with excitement.  His native accent

rattled like a stick upon railings.

     "Man," he cried, "there's not a doubt of it!  Barker has just marked the

window himself.  It's a good deal broader than any bootmark.  I mind that you

said it was a splay-foot, and here's the explanation.  But what's the game,

Mr. Holmes--what's the game?"

     "Ay, what's the game?" my friend repeated thoughtfully.

     White Mason chuckled and rubbed his fat hands together in his

professional satisfaction.  "I said it was a snorter!" he cried.  "And a real

snorter it is!"

$Unique_ID{SLH00083}

$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Tragedy of Birlstone; A Dawning Light}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

$Subject{}

$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

$Log{Plate A*0007801.scf

Plate B*0007802.scf}

                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 1

                           THE TRAGEDY OF BIRLSTONE

                                  Chapter 6

                               A DAWNING LIGHT

THE three detectives had many matters of detail into which to inquire; so I

returned alone to our modest quarters at the village inn.  But before doing so

I took a stroll in the curious old-world garden which flanked the house.  Rows

of very ancient yew trees cut into strange designs girded it round.  Inside

was a beautiful stretch of lawn with an old sundial in the middle, the whole

effect so soothing and restful that it was welcome to my somewhat jangled

nerves.

     In that deeply peaceful atmosphere one could forget, or remember only as

some fantastic nightmare, that darkened study with the sprawling, bloodstained

figure on the floor.  And yet, as I strolled round it and tried to steep my

soul in its gentle balm, a strange incident occurred, which brought me back to

the tragedy and left a sinister impression in my mind.

     I have said that a decoration of yew trees circled the garden.  At the

end farthest from the house they thickened into a continuous hedge.  On the

other side of this hedge, concealed from the eyes of anyone approaching from

the direction of the house, there was a stone seat.  As I approached the spot

I was aware of voices, some remark in the deep tones of a man, answered by a

little ripple of feminine laughter.

     An instant later I had come round the end of the hedge and my eyes lit

upon Mrs. Douglas and the man Barker before they were aware of my presence.

Her appearance gave me a shock.  In the dining room she had been demure and

discreet.  Now all pretense of grief had passed away from her.  Her eyes shone

with the joy of living, and her face still quivered with amusement at some

remark of her companion.  He sat forward, his hands clasped and his forearms

on his knees, with an answering smile upon his bold, handsome face.  In an

instant --but it was just one instant too late--they resumed their solemn

masks as my figure came into view.  A hurried word or two passed between them,

and then Barker rose and came towards me.

     "Excuse me, sir," said he, "but am I addressing Dr. Watson?"

     I bowed with a coldness which showed, I dare say, very plainly the

impression which had been produced upon my mind.

     "We thought that it was probably you, as your friendship with Mr.

Sherlock Holmes is so well known.  Would you mind coming over and speaking to

Mrs. Douglas for one instant?"

     I followed him with a dour face.  Very clearly I could see in my mind's

eye that shattered figure on the floor.  Here within a few hours of the

tragedy were his wife and his nearest friend laughing together behind a bush

in the garden which had been his.  I greeted the lady with reserve.  I had

grieved with her grief in the dining room.  Now I met her appealing gaze with

an unresponsive eye.

     "I fear that you think me callous and hard-hearted," said she.

     I shrugged my shoulders.  "It is no business of mine," said I.

     "Perhaps some day you will do me justice.  If you only realized-- --"

     "There is no need why Dr. Watson should realize," said Barker quickly.

"As he has himself said, it is no possible business of his."

     "Exactly," said I, "and so I will beg leave to resume my walk."

     "One moment, Dr. Watson," cried the woman in a pleading voice.  "There is

one question which you can answer with more authority than anyone else in the

world, and it may make a very great difference to me.  You know Mr. Holmes and

his relations with the police better than anyone else can.  Supposing that a

matter were brought confidentially to his knowledge, is it absolutely

necessary that he should pass it on to the detectives?"

     "Yes, that's it," said Barker eagerly.  "Is he on his own or is he

entirely in with them?"

     "I really don't know that I should be justified in discussing such a

point."

     "I beg--I implore that you will, Dr. Watson!  I assure you that you will

be helping us--helping me greatly if you will guide us on that point."

     There was such a ring of sincerity in the woman's voice that for the

instant I forgot all about her levity and was moved only to do her will.

     "Mr. Holmes is an independent investigator," I said.  "He is his own

master, and would act as his own judgment directed.  At the same time, he

would naturally feel loyalty towards the officials who were working on the

same case, and he would not conceal from them anything which would help them

in bringing a criminal to justice.  Beyond this I can say nothing, and I would

refer you to Mr. Holmes himself if you wanted fuller information."

     So saying I raised my hat and went upon my way, leaving them still seated

behind that concealing hedge.  I looked back as I rounded the far end of it,

and saw that they were still talking very earnestly together, and, as they

were gazing after me, it was clear that it was our interview that was the

subject of their debate.

     "I wish none of their confidences," said Holmes, when I reported to him

what had occurred.  He had spent the whole afternoon at the Manor House in

consultation with his two colleagues, and returned about five with a ravenous

appetite for a high tea which I had ordered for him.  "No confidences, Watson;

for they are mighty awkward if it comes to an arrest for conspiracy and

murder."

     "You think it will come to that?"

     He was in his most cheerful and debonair humour.  "My dear Watson, when I

have exterminated that fourth egg I shall be ready to put you in touch with

the whole situation.  I don't say that we have fathomed it--far from it--but

when we have traced the missing dumb-bell-- --"

     "The dumb-bell!"

     "Dear me, Watson, is it possible that you have not penetrated the fact

that the case hangs upon the missing dumb-bell?  Well, well, you need not be

downcast; for between ourselves I don't think that either Inspector Mac or the

excellent local practitioner has grasped the overwhelming importance of this

incident.  One dumb-bell, Watson!  Consider an athlete with one dumb-bell!

Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a

spinal curvature.  Shocking, Watson, shocking!"

     He sat with his mouth full of toast and his eyes sparkling with mischief,

watching my intellectual entanglement.  The mere sight of his excellent

appetite was an assurance of success; for I had very clear recollections of

days and nights without a thought of food, when his baffled mind had chafed

before some problem while his thin, eager features became more attenuated with

the asceticism of complete mental concentration.  Finally he lit his pipe, and

sitting in the inglenook of the old village inn he talked slowly and at random

about his case, rather as one who thinks aloud than as one who makes a

considered statement.

     "A lie, Watson--a great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromising lie--

that's what meets us on the threshold!  There is our starting point.  The

whole story told by Barker is a lie.  But Barker's story is corroborated by

Mrs. Douglas.  Therefore she is lying also.  They are both lying, and in a

conspiracy.  So now we have the clear problem.  Why are they lying, and what

is the truth which they are trying so hard to conceal?  Let us try, Watson,

you and I, if we can get behind the lie and reconstruct the truth.

     "How do I know that they are lying?  Because it is a clumsy fabrication

which simply could not be true.  Consider!  According to the story given to

us, the assassin had less than a minute after the murder had been committed to

take that ring, which was under another ring, from the dead man's finger, to

replace the other ring--a thing which he would surely never have done--and to

put that singular card beside his victim.  I say that this was obviously

impossible.

     "You may argue--but I have too much respect for your judgment, Watson, to

think that you will do so--that the ring may have been taken before the man

was killed.  The fact that the candle had been lit only a short time shows

that there had been no lengthy interview.  Was Douglas, from what we hear of

his fearless character, a man who would be likely to give up his wedding ring

at such short notice, or could we conceive of his giving it up at all?  No,

no, Watson, the assassin was alone with the dead man for some time with the

lamp lit.  Of that I have no doubt at all.

     "But the gunshot was apparently the cause of death.  Therefore the shot

must have been fired some time earlier than we are told.  But there could be

no mistake about such a matter as that.  We are in the presence, therefore, of

a deliberate conspiracy upon the part of the two people who heard the

gunshot-- of the man Barker and of the woman Douglas.  When on the top of this

I am able to show that the blood mark on the windowsill was deliberately

placed there by Barker, in order to give a false clue to the police, you will

admit that the case grows dark against him.

     "Now we have to ask ourselves at what hour the murder actually did occur.

Up to half-past ten the servants were moving about the house; so it was

certainly not before that time.  At a quarter to eleven they had all gone to

their rooms with the exception of Ames, who was in the pantry.  I have been

trying some experiments after you left us this afternoon, and I find that no

noise which MacDonald can make in the study can penetrate to me in the pantry

when the doors are all shut.

     "It is otherwise, however, from the housekeeper's room.  It is not so far

down the corridor, and from it I could vaguely hear a voice when it was very

loudly raised.  The sound from a shotgun is to some extent muffled when the

discharge is at very close range, as it undoubtedly was in this instance.  It

would not be very loud, and yet in the silence of the night it should have

easily penetrated to Mrs. Allen's room.  She is, as she has told us, somewhat

deaf; but none the less she mentioned in her evidence that she did hear

something like a door slamming half an hour before the alarm was given.  Half

an hour before the alarm was given would be a quarter to eleven.  I have no

doubt that what she heard was the report of the gun, and that this was the

real instant of the murder.

     "If this is so, we have now to determine what Barker and Mrs. Douglas,

presuming that they are not the actual murderers, could have been doing from

quarter to eleven, when the sound of the shot brought them down, until quarter

past eleven, when they rang the bell and summoned the servants.  What were

they doing, and why did they not instantly give the alarm?  That is the

question which faces us, and when it has been answered we shall surely have

gone some way to solve our problem."

     "I am convinced myself," said I, "that there is an understanding between

those two people.  She must be a heartless creature to sit laughing at some

jest within a few hours of her husband's murder."

     "Exactly.  She does not shine as a wife even in her own account of what

occurred.  I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you are aware,

Watson, but my experience of life has taught me that there are few wives,

having any regard for their husbands, who would let any man's spoken word

stand between them and that husband's dead body.  Should I ever marry, Watson,

I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her

from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few

yards of her.  It was badly stage-managed; for even the rawest investigators

must be struck by the absence of the usual feminine ululation.  If there had

been nothing else, this incident alone would have suggested a prearranged

conspiracy to my mind."

     "You think then, definitely, that Barker and Mrs. Douglas are guilty of

the murder?"

     "There is an appalling directness about your questions, Watson," said

Holmes, shaking his pipe at me.  "They come at me like bullets.  If you put it

that Mrs. Douglas and Barker know the truth about the murder, and are

conspiring to conceal it, then I can give you a whole-souled answer.  I am

sure they do.  But your more deadly proposition is not so clear.  Let us for a

moment consider the difficulties which stand in the way.

     "We will suppose that this couple are united by the bonds of a guilty

love, and that they have determined to get rid of the man who stands between

them.  It is a large supposition; for discreet inquiry among servants and

others has failed to corroborate it in any way.  On the contrary, there is a

good deal of evidence that the Douglases were very attached to each other."

     "That, I am sure, cannot be true," said I, thinking of the beautiful

smiling face in the garden.

     "Well, at least they gave that impression.  However, we will suppose that

they are an extraordinarily astute couple, who deceive everyone upon this

point, and conspire to murder the husband.  He happens to be a man over whose

head some danger hangs-- --"

     "We have only their word for that."

     Holmes looked thoughtful.  "I see, Watson.  You are sketching out a

theory by which everything they say from the beginning is false.  According to

your idea, there was never any hidden menace, or secret society, or Valley of

Fear, or Boss MacSomebody, or anything else.  Well, that is a good sweeping

generalization.  Let us see what that brings us to.  They invent this theory

to account for the crime.  They then play up to the idea by leaving this

bicycle in the park as proof of the existence of some outsider.  The stain on

the windowsill conveys the same idea.  So does the card on the body, which

might have been prepared in the house.  That all fits into your hypothesis,

Watson.  But now we come on the nasty, angular, uncompromising bits which

won't slip into their places.  Why a cut-off shotgun of all weapons--and an

American one at that?  How could they be so sure that the sound of it would

not bring someone on to them?  It's a mere chance as it is that Mrs. Allen did

not start out to inquire for the slamming door.  Why did your guilty couple do

all this, Watson?"

     "I confess that I can't explain it."

     "Then again, if a woman and her lover conspire to murder a husband, are

they going to advertise their guilt by ostentatiously removing his wedding

ring after his death?  Does that strike you as very probable, Watson?"

     "No, it does not."

     "And once again, if the thought of leaving a bicycle concealed outside

had occurred to you, would it really have seemed worth doing when the dullest

detective would naturally say this is an obvious blind, as the bicycle is the

first thing which the fugitive needed in order to make his escape."

     "I can conceive of no explanation."

     "And yet there should be no combination of events for which the wit of

man cannot conceive an explanation.  Simply as a mental exercise, without any

assertion that it is true, let me indicate a possible line of thought.  It is,

I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?

     "We will suppose that there was a guilty secret, a really shameful secret

in the life of this man Douglas.  This leads to his murder by someone who is,

we will suppose, an avenger, someone from outside.  This avenger, for some

reason which I confess I am still at a loss to explain, took the dead man's

wedding ring.  The vendetta might conceivably date back to the man's first

marriage, and the ring be taken for some such reason.

     "Before this avenger got away, Barker and the wife had reached the room.

The assassin convinced them that any attempt to arrest him would lead to the

publication of some hideous scandal.  They were converted to this idea, and

preferred to let him go.  For this purpose they probably lowered the bridge,

which can be done quite noiselessly, and then raised it again.  He made his

escape, and for some reason thought that he could do so more safely on foot

than on the bicycle.  He therefore left his machine where it would not be

discovered until he had got safely away.  So far we are within the bounds of

possibility, are we not?"

     "Well, it is possible, no doubt," said I, with some reserve.

     "We have to remember, Watson, that whatever occurred is certainly

something very extraordinary.  Well, now, to continue our supposititious case,

the couple --not necessarily a guilty couple--realize after the murderer is

gone that they have placed themselves in a position in which it may be

difficult for them to prove that they did not themselves either do the deed or

connive at it.  They rapidly and rather clumsily met the situation.  The mark

was put by Barker's bloodstained slipper upon the windowsill to suggest how

the fugitive got away.  They obviously were the two who must have heard the

sound of the gun; so they gave the alarm exactly as they would have done, but

a good half hour after the event."

     "And how do you propose to prove all this?"

     "Well, if there were an outsider, he may be traced and taken.  That would

be the most effective of all proofs.  But if not--well, the resources of

science are far from being exhausted.  I think that an evening alone in that

study would help me much."

     "An evening alone!"

     "I propose to go up there presently.  I have arranged it with the

estimable Ames, who is by no means whole-hearted about Barker.  I shall sit in

that room and see if its atmosphere brings me inspiration.  I'm a believer in

the genius loci.  You smile, Friend Watson.  Well, we shall see.  By the way,

you have that big unbrella of yours, have you not?"

     "It is here."

     "Well, I'll borrow that if I may."

     "Certainly--but what a wretched weapon!  If there is danger-- --"

     "Nothing serious, my dear Watson, or I should certainly ask for your

assistance.  But I'll take the umbrella.  At present I am only awaiting the

return of our colleagues from Tunbridge Wells, where they are at present

engaged in trying for a likely owner to the bicycle."

     It was nightfall before Inspector MacDonald and White Mason came back

from their expedition, and they arrived exultant, reporting a great advance in

our investigation.

     "Man, I'll admeet that I had my doubts if there was ever an outsider,"

said MacDonald; "but that's all past now.  We've had the bicycle identified,

and we have a description of our man; so that's a long step on our journey."

     "It sounds to me like the beginning of the end," said Holmes.  "I'm sure

I congratulate you both with all my heart."

     "Well, I started from the fact that Mr. Douglas had seemed disturbed

since the day before, when he had been at Tunbridge Wells.  It was at

Tunbridge Wells then that he had become conscious of some danger.  It was

clear, therefore, that if a man had come over with a bicycle it was from

Tunbridge Wells that he might be expected to have come.  We took the bicycle

over with us and showed it at the hotels.  It was identified at once by the

manager of the Eagle Commercial as belonging to a man named Hargrave, who had

taken a room there two days before.  This bicycle and a small valise were his

whole belongings.  He had registered his name as coming from London, but had

given no address.  The valise was London made, and the contents were British;

but the man himself was undoubtedly an American."

     "Well, well," said Holmes gleefully, "you have indeed done some solid

work while I have been sitting spinning theories with my friend!  It's a

lesson in being practical, Mr. Mac."

     "Ay, it's just that, Mr. Holmes," said the inspector with satisfaction.

     "But this may all fit in with your theories," I remarked.

     "That may or may not be.  But let us hear the end, Mr. Mac.  Was there

nothing to identify this man?"

     "So little that it was evident that he had carefully guarded himself

against identification.  There were no papers or letters, and no marking upon

the clothes.  A cycle map of the county lay on his bedroom table.  He had left

the hotel after breakfast yesterday morning on his bicycle, and no more was

heard of him until our inquiries."

     "That's what puzzles me, Mr. Holmes," said White Mason.  "If the fellow

did not want the hue and cry raised over him, one would imagine that he would

have returned and remained at the hotel as an inoffensive tourist.  As it is,

he must know that he will be reported to the police by the hotel manager and

that his disappearance will be connected with the murder."

     "So one would imagine.  Still, he has been justified of his wisdom up to

date, at any rate, since he has not been taken.  But his description--what of

that?"

     MacDonald referred to his notebook.  "Here we have it so far as they

could give it.  They don't seem to have taken any very particular stock of

him; but still the porter, the clerk, and the chambermaid are all agreed that

this about covers the points.  He was a man about five foot nine in height,

fifty or so years of age, his hair slightly grizzled, a grayish moustache, a

curved nose, and a face which all of them described as fierce and forbidding."

     "Well, bar the expression, that might almost be a description of Douglas

himself," said Holmes.  "He is just over fifty, with grizzled hair and

moustache, and about the same height.  Did you get anything else?"

     "He was dressed in a heavy gray suit with a reefer jacket, and he wore a

short yellow overcoat and a soft cap."

     "What about the shotgun?"

     "It is less than two feet long.  It could very well have fitted into his

valise.  He could have carried it inside his overcoat without difficulty."

     "And how do you consider that all this bears upon the general case?"

     "Well, Mr. Holmes," said MacDonald, "when we have got our man--and you

may be sure that I had his description on the wires within five minutes of

hearing it--we shall be better able to judge.  But, even as it stands, we have

surely gone a long way.  We know that an American calling himself Hargrave

came to Tunbridge Wells two days ago with bicycle and valise.  In the latter

was a sawed-off shotgun; so he came with the deliberate purpose of crime.

Yesterday morning he set off for this place on his bicycle, with his gun

concealed in his overcoat.  No one saw him arrive, so far as we can learn; but

he need not pass through the village to reach the park gates, and there are

many cyclists upon the road.  Presumably he at once concealed his cycle among

the laurels where it was found, and possibly lurked there himself, with his

eye on the house, waiting for Mr. Douglas to come out.  The shotgun is a

strange weapon to use inside a house; but he had intended to use it outside,

and there it has very obvious advantages, as it would be impossible to miss

with it, and the sound of shots is so common in an English sporting

neighbourhood that no particular notice would be taken."

     "That is all very clear," said Holmes.

     "Well, Mr. Douglas did not appear.  What was he to do next?  He left his

bicycle and approached the house in the twilight.  He found the bridge down

and no one about.  He took his chance, intending, no doubt, to make some

excuse if he met anyone.  He met no one.  He slipped into the first room that

he saw, and concealed himself behind the curtain.  Thence he could see the

drawbridge go up, and he knew that his only escape was through the moat.  He

waited until quarter-past eleven, when Mr. Douglas upon his usual nightly

round came into the room.  He shot him and escaped, as arranged.  He was aware

that the bicycle would be described by the hotel people and be a clue against

him; so he left it there and made his way by some other means to London or to

some safe hiding place which he had already arranged.  How is that, Mr.

Holmes?"

     "Well, Mr. Mac, it is very good and very clear so far as it goes.  That

is your end of the story.  My end is that the crime was committed half an hour

earlier than reported; that Mrs. Douglas and Barker are both in a conspiracy

to conceal something; that they aided the murderer's escape--or at least that

they reached the room before he escaped--and that they fabricated evidence of

his escape through the window, whereas in all probability they had themselves

let him go by lowering the bridge.  That's my reading of the first half."

     The two detectives shook their heads.

     "Well, Mr. Holmes, if this is true, we only tumble out of one mystery

into another," said the London inspector.

     "And in some ways a worse one," added White Mason.  "The lady has never

been in America in all her life.  What possible connection could she have with

an American assassin which would cause her to shelter him?"

     "I freely admit the difficulties," said Holmes.  "I propose to make a

little investigation of my own to-night, and it is just possible that it may

contribute something to the common cause."

     "Can we help you, Mr. Holmes?"

     "No, no!  Darkness and Dr. Watson's umbrella--my wants are simple.  And

Ames, the faithful Ames, no doubt he will stretch a point for me.  All my

lines of thought lead me back invariably to the one basic question--why should

an athletic man develop his frame upon so unnatural an instrument as a single

dumb-bell?"

     It was late that night when Holmes returned from his solitary excursion.

We slept in a double-bedded room, which was the best that the little country

inn could do for us.  I was already asleep when I was partly awakened by his

entrance.

     "Well, Holmes," I murmured, "have you found anything out?"

     He stood beside me in silence, his candle in his hand.  Then the tall,

lean figure inclined towards me.  "I say, Watson," he whispered, "would you be

afraid to sleep in the same room with a lunatic, a man with softening of the

brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?"

     "Not in the least," I answered in astonishment.

     "Ah, that's lucky," he said, and not another word would he utter that

night.

$Unique_ID{SLH00084}

$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Tragedy of Birlstone; The Solution}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

$Subject{}

$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

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Plate B*0007802.scf}

                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 1

                           THE TRAGEDY OF BIRLSTONE

                                  Chapter 7

                                 THE SOLUTION

NEXT morning, after breakfast, we found Inspector MacDonald and White Mason

seated in close consultation in the small parlour of the local police

sergeant.  On the table in front of them were piled a number of letters and

telegrams, which they were carefully sorting and docketing.  Three had been

placed on one side.

     "Still on the track of the elusive bicyclist?" Holmes asked cheerfully.

"What is the latest news of the ruffian?"

     MacDonald pointed ruefully to his heap of correspondence.

     "He is at present reported from Leicester, Nottingham, Southampton,

Derby, East Ham, Richmond, and fourteen other places.  In three of them--East

Ham, Leicester, and Liverpool--there is a clear case against him, and he has

actually been arrested.  The country seems to be full of the fugitives with

yellow coats."

     "Dear me!" said Holmes sympathetically.  "Now, Mr. Mac, and you, Mr.

White Mason, I wish to give you a very earnest piece of advice.  When I went

into this case with you I bargained, as you will no doubt remember, that I

should not present you with half-proved theories, but that I should retain and

work out my own ideas until I had satisfied myself that they were correct.

For this reason I am not at the present moment telling you all that is in my

mind.  On the other hand, I said that I would play the game fairly by you, and

I do not think it is a fair game to allow you for one unnecessary moment to

waste your energies upon a profitless task.  Therefore I am here to advise you

this morning, and my advice to you is summed up in three words--abandon the

case."

     MacDonald and White Mason stared in amazement at their celebrated

colleague.

     "You consider it hopeless!" cried the inspector.

     "I consider your case to be hopeless.  I do not consider that it is

hopeless to arrive at the truth."

     "But this cyclist.  He is not an invention.  We have his description, his

valise, his bicycle.  The fellow must be somewhere.  Why should we not get

him?"

     "Yes, yes, no doubt he is somewhere, and no doubt we shall get him; but I

would not have you waste your energies in East Ham or Liverpool.  I am sure

that we can find some shorter cut to a result."

     "You are holding something back.  It's hardly fair of you, Mr. Holmes."

The inspector was annoyed.

     "You know my methods of work, Mr. Mac.  But I will hold it back for the

shortest time possible.  I only wish to verify my details in one way, which

can very readily be done, and then I make my bow and return to London, leaving

my results entirely at your service.  I owe you too much to act otherwise; for

in all my experience I cannot recall any more singular and interesting study."

     "This is clean beyond me, Mr. Holmes.  We saw you when we returned from

Tunbridge Wells last night, and you were in general agreement with our

results.  What has happened since then to give you a completely new idea of

the case?"

     "Well, since you ask me, I spent, as I told you that I would, some hours

last night at the Manor House."

     "Well, what happened?"

     "Ah, I can only give you a very general answer to that for the moment.

By the way, I have been reading a short but clear and interesting account of

the old building, purchasable at the modest sum of one penny from the local

tobacconist."

     Here Holmes drew a small tract, embellished with a rude engraving of the

ancient Manor House, from his waistcoat pocket.

     "It immensely adds to the zest of an investigation, my dear Mr. Mac, when

one is in conscious sympathy with the historical atmosphere of one's

surroundings.  Don't look so impatient; for I assure you that even so bald an

account as this raises some sort of picture of the past in one's mind.  Permit

me to give you a sample.  'Erected in the fifth year of the reign of James I,

and standing upon the site of a much older building, the Manor House of

Birlstone presents one of the finest surviving examples of the moated Jacobean

residence-- --'"

     "You are making fools of us, Mr. Holmes!"

     "Tut, tut, Mr. Mac!--the first sign of temper I have detected in you.

Well, I won't read it verbatim, since you feel so strongly upon the subject.

But when I tell you that there is some account of the taking of the place by a

parliamentary colonel in 1644, of the concealment of Charles for several days

in the course of the Civil War, and finally of a visit there by the second

George, you will admit that there are various associations of interest

connected with this ancient house."

     "I don't doubt it, Mr. Holmes; but that is no business of ours."

     "Is it not?  Is it not?  Breadth of view, my dear Mr. Mac, is one of the

essentials of our profession.  The interplay of ideas and the oblique uses of

knowledge are often of extraordinary interest.  You will excuse these remarks

from one who, though a mere connoisseur of crime, is still rather older and

perhaps more experienced than yourself."

     "I'm the first to admit that," said the detective heartily.  "You get to

your point, I admit; but you have such a deuced round-the-corner way of doing

it."

     "Well, well, I'll drop past history and get down to present-day facts.  I

called last night, as I have already said, at the Manor House.  I did not see

either Barker or Mrs. Douglas.  I saw no necessity to disturb them; but I was

pleased to hear that the lady was not visibly pining and that she had partaken

of an excellent dinner.  My visit was specially made to the good Mr. Ames,

with whom I exchanged some amiabilities, which culminated in his allowing me,

without reference to anyone else, to sit alone for a time in the study."

     "What!  With that?" I ejaculated.

     "No, no, everything is now in order.  You gave permission for that, Mr.

Mac, as I am informed.  The room was in its normal state, and in it I passed

an instructive quarter of an hour."

     "What were you doing?"

     "Well, not to make a mystery of so simple a matter, I was looking for the

missing dumb-bell.  It has always bulked rather large in my estimate of the

case.  I ended by finding it."

     "Where?"

     "Ah, there we come to the edge of the unexplored.  Let me go a little

further, a very little further, and I will promise that you shall share

everything that I know."

     "Well, we're bound to take you on your own terms," said the inspector;

"but when it comes to telling us to abandon the case--why in the name of

goodness should we abandon the case?"

     "For the simple reason, my dear Mr. Mac, that you have not got the first

idea what it is that you are investigating."

     "We are investigating the murder of Mr. John Douglas of Birlstone Manor."

     "Yes, yes, so you are.  But don't trouble to trace the mysterious

gentleman upon the bicycle.  I assure you that it won't help you."

     "Then what do you suggest that we do?"

     "I will tell you exactly what to do, if you will do it."

     "Well, I'm bound to say I've always found you had reason behind all your

queer ways.  I'll do what you advise."

     "And you, Mr. White Mason?"

     The country detective looked helplessly from one to the other.  Holmes

and his methods were new to him.  "Well, if it is good enough for the

inspector, it is good enough for me," he said at last.

     "Capital!" said Holmes.  "Well, then, I should recommend a nice, cheery

country walk for both of you.  They tell me that the views from Birlstone

Ridge over the Weald are very remarkable.  No doubt lunch could be got at some

suitable hostelry; though my ignorance of the country prevents me from

recommending one.  In the evening, tired but happy-- --"

     "Man, this is getting past a joke!" cried MacDonald, rising angrily from

his chair.

     "Well, well, spend the day as you like," said Holmes, patting him

cheerfully upon the shoulder.  "Do what you like and go where you will, but

meet me here before dusk without fail--without fail, Mr. Mac."

     "That sounds more like sanity."

     "All of it was excellent advice; but I don't insist, so long as you are

here when I need you.  But now, before we part, I want you to write a note to

Mr. Barker."

     "Well?"

     "I'll dictate it, if you like.  Ready?

          "DEAR SIR:

               "It has struck me that it is our duty to drain the moat, in the

          hope that we may find some-- --"

     "It's impossible," said the inspector.  "I've made inquiry."

     "Tut, tut!  My dear sir, please do what I ask you."

     "Well, go on."

          "--in the hope that we may find something which may bear upon our

          investigation.  I have made arrangements, and the workmen will be at

          work early to-morrow morning diverting the stream-- --"

     "Impossible!"

          "--diverting the stream; so I thought it best to explain matters

          beforehand.

Now sign that, and send it by hand about four o'clock.  At that hour we shall

meet again in this room.  Until then we may each do what we like; for I can

assure you that this inquiry has come to a definite pause."

     Evening was drawing in when we reassembled.  Holmes was very serious in

his manner, myself curious, and the detectives obviously critical and annoyed.

     "Well, gentlemen," said my friend gravely, "I am asking you now to put

everything to the test with me, and you will judge for yourselves whether the

observations I have made justify the conclusions to which I have come.  It is

a chill evening, and I do not know how long our expedition may last; so I beg

that you will wear your warmest coats.  It is of the first importance that we

should be in our places before it grows dark; so with your permission we shall

get started at once."      We passed along the outer bounds of the Manor House

park until we came to a place where there was a gap in the rails which fenced

it.  Through this we slipped, and then in the gathering gloom we followed

Holmes until we had reached a shrubbery which lies nearly opposite to the main

door and the drawbridge.  The latter had not been raised.  Holmes crouched

down behind the screen of laurels, and we all three followed his example.

     "Well, what are we to do now?" asked MacDonald with some gruffness.

     "Possess our souls in patience and make as little noise as possible,"

Holmes answered.

     "What are we here for at all?  I really think that you might treat us

with more frankness."

     Holmes laughed.  "Watson insists that I am the dramatist in real life,"

said he.  "Some touch of the artist wells up within me, and calls insistently

for a well staged performance.  Surely our profession, Mr. Mac, would be a

drab and sordid one if we did not sometimes set the scene so as to glorify our

results.  The blunt accusation, the brutal tap upon the shoulder--what can one

make of such a denouement?  But the quick inference, the subtle trap, the

clever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindication of bold

theories--are these not the pride and the justification of our life's work?

At the present moment you thrill with the glamour of the situation and the

anticipation of the hunt.  Where would be that thrill if I had been as

definite as a timetable?  I only ask a little patience, Mr. Mac, and all will

be clear to you."

     "Well, I hope the pride and justification and the rest of it will come

before we all get our death of cold," said the London detective with comic

resignation.

     We all had good reason to join in the aspiration; for our vigil was a

long and bitter one.  Slowly the shadows darkened over the long, sombre face

of the old house.  A cold, damp reek from the moat chilled us to the bones and

set our teeth chattering.  There was a single lamp over the gateway and a

steady globe of light in the fatal study.  Everything else was dark and still.

     "How long is this to last?" asked the inspector finally.  "And what is it

we are watching for?"

     "I have no more notion than you how long it is to last," Holmes answered

with some asperity.  "If criminals would always schedule their movements like

railway trains, it would certainly be more convenient for all of us.  As to

what it is we-- --  Well, that's what we are watching for!"

     As he spoke the bright, yellow light in the study was obscured by

somebody passing to and fro before it.  The laurels among which we lay were

immediately opposite the window and not more than a hundred feet from it.

Presently it was thrown open with a whining of hinges, and we could dimly see

the dark outline of a man's head and shoulders looking out into the gloom.

For some minutes he peered forth in furtive, stealthy fashion, as one who

wishes to be assured that he is unobserved.  Then he leaned forward, and in

the intense silence we were aware of the soft lapping of agitated water.  He

seemed to be stirring up the moat with something which he held in his hand.

Then suddenly he hauled something in as a fisherman lands a fish--some large,

round object which obscured the light as it was dragged through the open

casement.

     "Now!" cried Holmes.  "Now!"

     We were all upon our feet, staggering after him with our stiffened limbs,

while he ran swiftly across the bridge and rang violently at the bell.  There

was the rasping of bolts from the other side, and the amazed Ames stood in the

entrance.  Holmes brushed him aside without a word and, followed by all of us,

rushed into the room which had been occupied by the man whom we had been

watching.

     The oil lamp on the table represented the glow which we had seen from

outside.  It was now in the hand of Cecil Barker, who held it towards us as we

entered.  Its light shone upon his strong, resolute, clean-shaved face and his

menacing eyes.

     "What the devil is the meaning of all this?" he cried.  "What are you

after, anyhow?"

     Holmes took a swift glance round, and then pounced upon a sodden bundle

tied together with cord which lay where it had been thrust under the writing

table.

     "This is what we are after, Mr. Barker--this bundle, weighted with a

dumb-bell, which you have just raised from the bottom of the moat."

     Barker stared at Holmes with amazement in his face.  "How in thunder came

you to know anything about it?" he asked.

     "Simply that I put it there."

     "You put it there!  You!"

     "Perhaps I should have said 'replaced it there,'" said Holmes.  "You will

remember, Inspector MacDonald, that I was somewhat struck by the absence of a

dumb-bell.  I drew your attention to it; but with the pressure of other events

you had hardly the time to give it the consideration which would have enabled

you to draw deductions from it.  When water is near and a weight is missing it

is not a very far-fetched supposition that something has been sunk in the

water.  The idea was at least worth testing; so with the help of Ames, who

admitted me to the room, and the crook of Dr. Watson's umbrella, I was able

last night to fish up and inspect this bundle.

     "It was of the first importance, however, that we should be able to prove

who placed it there.  This we accomplished by the very obvious device of

announcing that the moat would be dried to-morrow, which had, of course, the

effect that whoever had hidden the bundle would most certainly withdraw it the

moment that darkness enabled him to do so.  We have no less than four

witnesses as to who it was who took advantage of the opportunity, and so, Mr.

Barker, I think the word lies now with you."

     Sherlock Holmes put the sopping bundle upon the table beside the lamp and

undid the cord which bound it.  From within he extracted a dumb-bell, which he

tossed down to its fellow in the corner.  Next he drew forth a pair of boots.

"American, as you perceive," he remarked, pointing to the toes.  Then he laid

upon the table a long, deadly, sheathed knife.  Finally he unravelled a bundle

of clothing, comprising a complete set of underclothes, socks, a gray tweed

suit, and a short yellow overcoat.

     "The clothes are commonplace," remarked Holmes, "save only the overcoat,

which is full of suggestive touches."  He held it tenderly towards the light.

"Here, as you perceive, is the inner pocket prolonged into the lining in such

fashion as to give ample space for the truncated fowling piece.  The tailor's

tab is on the neck--'Neal, Outfitter, Vermissa, U. S. A.'  I have spent an

instructive afternoon in the rector's library, and have enlarged my knowledge

by adding the fact that Vermissa is a flourishing little town at the head of

one of the best known coal and iron valleys in the United States.  I have some

recollection, Mr. Barker, that you associated the coal districts with Mr.

Douglas's first wife, and it would surely not be too far-fetched an inference

that the V. V. upon the card by the dead body might stand for Vermissa Valley,

or that this very valley which sends forth emissaries of murder may be that

Valley of Fear of which we have heard.  So much is fairly clear.  And now, Mr.

Barker, I seem to be standing rather in the way of your explanation."

     It was a sight to see Cecil Barker's expressive face during this

exposition of the great detective.  Anger, amazement, consternation, and

indecision swept over it in turn.  Finally he took refuge in a somewhat acrid

irony.

     "You know such a lot, Mr. Holmes, perhaps you had better tell us some

more," he sneered.

     "I have no doubt that I could tell you a great deal more, Mr. Barker; but

it would come with a better grace from you."

     "Oh, you think so, do you?  Well, all I can say is that if there's any

secret here it is not my secret, and I am not the man to give it away."

     "Well, if you take that line, Mr. Barker," said the inspector quietly,

"we must just keep you in sight until we have the warrant and can hold you."

     "You can do what you damn please about that," said Barker defiantly.

     The proceedings seemed to have come to a definite end so far as he was

concerned; for one had only to look at that granite face to realize that no

peine forte et dure would ever force him to plead against his will.  The

deadlock was broken, however, by a woman's voice.  Mrs. Douglas had been

standing listening at the half opened door, and now she entered the room.

     "You have done enough for now, Cecil," said she.  "Whatever comes of it

in the future, you have done enough."

     "Enough and more than enough," remarked Sherlock Holmes gravely.  "I have

every sympathy with you, madam, and I should strongly urge you to have some

confidence in the common sense of our jurisdiction and to take the police

voluntarily into your complete confidence.  It may be that I am myself at

fault for not following up the hint which you conveyed to me through my

friend, Dr. Watson; but, at that time I had every reason to believe that you

were directly concerned in the crime.  Now I am assured that this is not so.

At the same time, there is much that is unexplained, and I should strongly

recommend that you ask Mr. Douglas to tell us his own story."

     Mrs. Douglas gave a cry of astonishment at Holmes's words.  The

detectives and I must have echoed it, when we were aware of a man who seemed

to have emerged from the wall, who advanced now from the gloom of the corner

in which he had appeared.  Mrs. Douglas turned, and in an instant her arms

were round him.  Barker had seized his outstretched hand.

     "It's best this way, Jack," his wife repeated; "I am sure that it is

best."

     "Indeed, yes, Mr. Douglas," said Sherlock Holmes, "I am sure that you

will find it best."

     The man stood blinking at us with the dazed look of one who comes from

the dark into the light.  It was a remarkable face, bold gray eyes, a strong,

short-clipped, grizzled moustache, a square, projecting chin, and a humorous

mouth.  He took a good look at us all, and then to my amazement he advanced to

me and handed me a bundle of paper.

     "I've heard of you," said he in a voice which was not quite English and

not quite American, but was altogether mellow and pleasing.  "You are the

historian of this bunch.  Well, Dr. Watson, you've never had such a story as

that pass through your hands before, and I'll lay my last dollar on that.

Tell it your own way; but there are the facts, and you can't miss the public

so long as you have those.  I've been cooped up two days, and I've spent the

daylight hours-- as much daylight as I could get in that rat trap--in putting

the thing into words.  You're welcome to them--you and your public.  There's

the story of the Valley of Fear."

     "That's the past, Mr. Douglas," said Sherlock Holmes quietly.  "What we

desire now is to hear your story of the present."

     "You'll have it, sir," said Douglas.  "May I smoke as I talk?  Well,

thank you, Mr. Holmes.  You're a smoker yourself, if I remember right, and

you'll guess what it is to be sitting for two days with tobacco in your pocket

and afraid that the smell will give you away."  He leaned against the

mantelpiece and sucked at the cigar which Holmes had handed him.  "I've heard

of you, Mr. Holmes.  I never guessed that I should meet you.  But before you

are through with that," he nodded at my papers, "you will say I've brought you

something fresh."

     Inspector MacDonald had been staring at the newcomer with the greatest

amazement.  "Well, this fairly beats me!" he cried at last.  "If you are Mr.

John Douglas of Birlstone Manor, then whose death have we been investigating

for these two days, and where in the world have you sprung from now?  You

seemed to me to come out of the floor like a jack-in-a-box."

     "Ah, Mr. Mac," said Holmes, shaking a reproving forefinger, "you would

not read that excellent local compilation which described the concealment of

King Charles.  People did not hide in those days without excellent hiding

places, and the hiding place that has once been used may be again.  I had

persuaded myself that we should find Mr. Douglas under this roof."

     "And how long have you been playing this trick upon us, Mr. Holmes?" said

the inspector angrily.  "How long have you allowed us to waste ourselves upon

a search that you knew to be an absurd one?"

     "Not one instant, my dear Mr. Mac.  Only last night did I form my views

of the case.  As they could not be put to the proof until this evening, I

invited you and your colleague to take a holiday for the day.  Pray what more

could I do?  When I found the suit of clothes in the moat, it at once became

apparent to me that the body we had found could not have been the body of Mr.

John Douglas at all, but must be that of the bicyclist from Tunbridge Wells.

No other conclusion was possible.  Therefore I had to determine where Mr. John

Douglas himself could be, and the balance of probability was that with the

connivance of his wife and his friend he was concealed in a house which had

such conveniences for a fugitive, and awaiting quieter times when he could

make his final escape."

     "Well, you figured it out about right," said Douglas approvingly.  "I

thought I'd dodge your British law; for I was not sure how I stood under it,

and also I saw my chance to throw these hounds once for all off my track.

Mind you, from first to last I have done nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing

that I would not do again; but you'll judge that for yourselves when I tell

you my story.  Never mind warning me, Inspector:  I'm ready to stand pat upon

the truth.

     "I'm not going to begin at the beginning.  That's all there," he

indicated my bundle of papers, "and a mighty queer yarn you'll find it.  It

all comes down to this:  That there are some men that have good cause to hate

me and would give their last dollar to know that they had got me.  So long as

I am alive and they are alive, there is no safety in this world for me.  They

hunted me from Chicago to California, then they chased me out of America; but

when I married and settled down in this quiet spot I thought my last years

were going to be peaceable.

     "I never explained to my wife how things were.  Why should I pull her

into it?  She would never have a quiet moment again; but would always be

imagining trouble.  I fancy she knew something, for I may have dropped a word

here or a word there; but until yesterday, after you gentlemen had seen her,

she never knew the rights of the matter.  She told you all she knew, and so

did Barker here; for on the night when this thing happened there was mighty

little time for explanations.  She knows everything now, and I would have been

a wiser man if I had told her sooner.  But it was a hard question, dear," he

took her hand for an instant in his own, "and I acted for the best.

     "Well, gentlemen, the day before these happenings I was over in Tunbridge

Wells, and I got a glimpse of a man in the street.  It was only a glimpse; but

I have a quick eye for these things, and I never doubted who it was.  It was

the worst enemy I had among them all--one who has been after me like a hungry

wolf after a caribou all these years.  I knew there was trouble coming, and I

came home and made ready for it.  I guessed I'd fight through it all right on

my own, my luck was a proverb in the States about '76.  I never doubted that

it would be with me still.

     "I was on my guard all that next day, and never went out into the park.

It's as well, or he'd have had the drop on me with that buckshot gun of his

before ever I could draw on him.  After the bridge was up--my mind was always

more restful when that bridge was up in the evenings--I put the thing clear

out of my head.  I never dreamed of his getting into the house and waiting for

me.  But when I made my round in my dressing gown, as was my habit, I had no

sooner entered the study than I scented danger.  I guess when a man has had

dangers in his life--and I've had more than most in my time--there is a kind

of sixth sense that waves the red flag.  I saw the signal clear enough, and

yet I couldn't tell you why.  Next instant I spotted a boot under the window

curtain, and then I saw why plain enough.

     "I'd just the one candle that was in my hand; but there was a good light

from the hall lamp through the open door.  I put down the candle and jumped

for a hammer that I'd left on the mantel.  At the same moment he sprang at me.

I saw the glint of a knife, and I lashed at him with the hammer.  I got him

somewhere; for the knife tinkled down on the floor.  He dodged round the table

as quick as an eel, and a moment later he'd got his gun from under his coat.

I heard him cock it; but I had got hold of it before he could fire.  I had it

by the barrel, and we wrestled for it all ends up for a minute or more.  It

was death to the man that lost his grip.

     "He never lost his grip; but he got it butt downward for a moment too

long.  Maybe it was I that pulled the trigger.  Maybe we just jolted it off

between us.  Anyhow, he got both barrels in the face, and there I was, staring

down at all that was left of Ted Baldwin.  I'd recognized him in the township,

and again when he sprang for me; but his own mother wouldn't recognize him as

I saw him then.  I'm used to rough work; but I fairly turned sick at the sight

of him.

     "I was hanging on the side of the table when Barker came hurrying down. I

heard my wife coming, and I ran to the door and stopped her.  It was no sight

for a woman.  I promised I'd come to her soon.  I said a word or two to Barker

--he took it all in at a glance--and we waited for the rest to come along.

But there was no sign of them.  Then we understood that they could hear

nothing, and that all that had happened was known only to ourselves.

     "It was at that instant that the idea came to me.  I was fairly dazzled

by the brilliance of it.  The man's sleeve had slipped up and there was the

branded mark of the lodge upon his forearm.  See here!"

     The man whom we had known as Douglas turned up his own coat and cuff to

show a brown triangle within a circle exactly like that which we had seen upon

the dead man.

     "It was the sight of that which started me on it.  I seemed to see it all

clear at a glance.  There were his height and hair and figure, about the same

as my own.  No one could swear to his face, poor devil!  I brought down this

suit of clothes, and in a quarter of an hour Barker and I had put my dressing

gown on him and he lay as you found him.  We tied all his things into a

bundle, and I weighted them with the only weight I could find and put them

through the window.  The card he had meant to lay upon my body was lying

beside his own.

     "My rings were put on his finger; but when it came to the wedding ring,"

he held out his muscular hand, "you can see for yourselves that I had struck

the limit.  I have not moved it since the day I was married, and it would have

taken a file to get it off.  I don't know, anyhow, that I should have cared to

part with it; but if I had wanted to I couldn't.  So we just had to leave that

detail to take care of itself.  On the other hand, I brought a bit of plaster

down and put it where I am wearing one myself at this instant.  You slipped up

there, Mr. Holmes, clever as you are; for if you had chanced to take off that

plaster you would have found no cut underneath it.

     "Well, that was the situation.  If I could lie low for a while and then

get away where I could be joined by my 'widow' we should have a chance at last

of living in peace for the rest of our lives.  These devils would give me no

rest so long as I was above ground; but if they saw in the papers that Baldwin

had got his man, there would be an end of all my troubles.  I hadn't much time

to make it all clear to Barker and to my wife; but they understood enough to

be able to help me.  I knew all about this hiding place, so did Ames; but it

never entered his head to connect it with the matter.  I retired into it, and

it was up to Barker to do the rest.

     "I guess you can fill in for yourselves what he did.  He opened the

window and made the mark on the sill to give an idea of how the murderer

escaped.  It was a tall order, that; but as the bridge was up there was no

other way.  Then, when everything was fixed, he rang the bell for all he was

worth.  What happened afterward you know.  And so, gentlemen, you can do what

you please; but I've told you the truth and the whole truth, so help me God!

What I ask you now is how do I stand by the English law?"

     There was a silence which was broken by Sherlock Holmes.

     "The English law is in the main a just law.  You will get no worse than

your deserts from that, Mr. Douglas.  But I would ask you how did this man

know that you lived here, or how to get into your house, or where to hide to

get you?"

     "I know nothing of this."

     Holmes's face was very white and grave.  "The story is not over yet, I

fear," said he.  "You may find worse dangers than the English law, or even

than your enemies from America.  I see trouble before you, Mr. Douglas.

You'll take my advice and still be on your guard."

     And now, my long-suffering readers, I will ask you to come away with me

for a time, far from the Sussex Manor House of Birlstone, and far also from

the year of grace in which we made our eventful journey which ended with the

strange story of the man who had been known as John Douglas.  I wish you to

journey back some twenty years in time, and westward some thousands of miles

in space, that I may lay before you a singular and terrible narrative--so

singular and so terrible that you may find it hard to believe that even as I

tell it, even so did it occur.

     Do not think that I intrude one story before another is finished.  As you

read on you will find that this is not so.  And when I have detailed those

distant events and you have solved this mystery of the past, we shall meet

once more in those rooms on Baker Street, where this, like so many other

wonderful happenings, will find its end.

$Unique_ID{SLH00085}

$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Scowrers; The Man}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

$Subject{}

$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

$Log{Plate A*0007801.scf

Plate B*0007802.scf}

                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 2

                                 THE SCOWRERS

                                  Chapter 1

                                   THE MAN

IT WAS the fourth of February in the year 1875.  It had been a severe winter,

and the snow lay deep in the gorges of the Gilmerton Mountains.  The steam

ploughs had, however, kept the railroad open, and the evening train which

connects the long line of coal-mining and iron-working settlements was slowly

groaning its way up the steep gradients which lead from Stagville on the plain

to Vermissa, the central township which lies at the head of Vermissa Valley.

From this point the track sweeps downward to Bartons Crossing, Helmdale, and

the purely agricultural county of Merton.  It was a single track railroad; but

at every siding--and they were numerous--long lines of trucks piled with coal

and iron ore told of the hidden wealth which had brought a rude population and

a bustling life to this most desolate corner of the United States of America.

     For desolate it was!  Little could the first pioneer who had traversed it

have ever imagined that the fairest prairies and the most lush water pastures

were valueless compared to this gloomy land of black crag and tangled forest.

Above the dark and often scarcely penetrable woods upon their flanks, the

high, bare crowns of the mountains, white snow, and jagged rock towered upon

each flank, leaving a long, winding, tortuous valley in the centre.  Up this

the little train was slowly crawling.

     The oil lamps had just been lit in the leading passenger car, a long,

bare carriage in which some twenty or thirty people were seated.  The greater

number of these were workmen returning from their day's toil in the lower part

of the valley.  At least a dozen, by their grimed faces and the safety

lanterns which they carried, proclaimed themselves miners.  These sat smoking

in a group and conversed in low voices, glancing occasionally at two men on

the opposite side of the car, whose uniforms and badges showed them to be

policemen.

     Several women of the labouring class and one or two travellers who might

have been small local storekeepers made up the rest of the company, with the

exception of one young man in a corner by himself.  It is with this man that

we are concerned.  Take a good look at him; for he is worth it.

     He is a fresh-complexioned, middle-sized young man, not far, one would

guess, from his thirtieth year.  He has large, shrewd, humorous gray eyes

which twinkle inquiringly from time to time as he looks round through his

spectacles at the people about him.  It is easy to see that he is of a

sociable and possibly simple disposition, anxious to be friendly to all men.

Anyone could pick him at once as gregarious in his habits and communicative in

his nature, with a quick wit and a ready smile.  And yet the man who studied

him more closely might discern a certain firmness of jaw and grim tightness

about the lips which would warn him that there were depths beyond, and that

this pleasant, brown-haired young Irishman might conceivably leave his mark

for good or evil upon any society to which he was introduced.

     Having made one or two tentative remarks to the nearest miner, and

receiving only short, gruff replies, the traveller resigned himself to

uncongenial silence, staring moodily out of the window at the fading

landscape.

     It was not a cheering prospect.  Through the growing gloom there pulsed

the red glow of the furnaces on the sides of the hills.  Great heaps of slag

and dumps of cinders loomed up on each side, with the high shafts of the

collieries towering above them.  Huddled groups of mean, wooden houses, the

windows of which were beginning to outline themselves in light, were scattered

here and there along the line, and the frequent halting places were crowded

with their swarthy inhabitants.

     The iron and coal valleys of the Vermissa district were no resorts for

the leisured or the cultured.  Everywhere there were stern signs of the

crudest battle of life, the rude work to be done, and the rude, strong workers

who did it.

     The young traveller gazed out into this dismal country with a face of

mingled repulsion and interest, which showed that the scene was new to him.

At intervals he drew from his pocket a bulky letter to which he referred, and

on the margins of which he scribbled some notes.  Once from the back of his

waist he produced something which one would hardly have expected to find in

the possession of so mild-mannered a man.  It was a navy revolver of the

largest size.  As he turned it slantwise to the light, the glint upon the rims

of the copper shells within the drum showed that it was fully loaded.  He

quickly restored it to his secret pocket, but not before it had been observed

by a working man who had seated himself upon the adjoining bench.

     "Hullo, mate!" said he.  "You seem heeled and ready."

     The young man smiled with an air of embarrassment.

     "Yes," said he, "we need them sometimes in the place I come from."

     "And where may that be?"

     "I'm last from Chicago."

     "A stranger in these parts?"

     "Yes."

     "You may find you need it here," said the workman.

     "Ah! is that so?"  The young man seemed interested.

     "Have you heard nothing of doings hereabouts?"

     "Nothing out of the way."

     "Why, I thought the country was full of it.  You'll hear quick enough.

What made you come here?"

     "I heard there was always work for a willing man."

     "Are you a member of the union?"

     "Sure."

     "Then you'll get your job, I guess.  Have you any friends?"

     "Not yet; but I have the means of making them."

     "How's that, then?"

     "I am one of the Eminent Order of Freemen.  There's no town without a

lodge, and where there is a lodge I'll find my friends."

     The remark had a singular effect upon his companion.  He glanced round

suspiciously at the others in the car.  The miners were still whispering among

themselves.  The two police officers were dozing.  He came across, seated

himself close to the young traveller, and held out his hand.

     "Put it there," he said.

     A hand-grip passed between the two.

     "I see you speak the truth," said the workman.  "But it's well to make

certain."  He raised his right hand to his right eyebrow.  The traveller at

once raised his left hand to his left eyebrow.

     "Dark nights are unpleasant," said the workman.

     "Yes, for strangers to travel," the other answered.

     "That's good enough.  I'm Brother Scanlan, Lodge 341, Vermissa Valley.

Glad to see you in these parts."

     "Thank you.  I'm Brother John McMurdo, Lodge 29, Chicago.  Bodymaster J.

H. Scott.  But I am in luck to meet a brother so early."

     "Well, there are plenty of us about.  You won't find the order more

flourishing anywhere in the States than right here in Vermissa Valley.  But we

could do with some lads like you.  I can't understand a spry man of the union

finding no work to do in Chicago."

     "I found plenty of work to do," said McMurdo.

     "Then why did you leave?"

     McMurdo nodded towards the policemen and smiled.  "I guess those chaps

would be glad to know," he said.

     Scanlan groaned sympathetically.  "In trouble?" he asked in a whisper.

     "Deep."

     "A penitentiary job?"

     "And the rest."

     "Not a killing!"

     "It's early days to talk of such things," said McMurdo with the air of a

man who had been surprised into saying more than he intended.  "I've my own

good reasons for leaving Chicago, and let that be enough for you.  Who are you

that you should take it on yourself to ask such things?"  His gray eyes

gleamed with sudden and dangerous anger from behind his glasses.

     "All right, mate, no offense meant.  The boys will think none the worse

of you, whatever you may have done.  Where are you bound for now?"

     "Vermissa."

     "That's the third halt down the line.  Where are you staying?"

     McMurdo took out an envelope and held it close to the murky oil lamp.

"Here is the address--Jacob Shafter, Sheridan Street.  It's a boarding house

that was recommended by a man I knew in Chicago."

     "Well, I don't know it; but Vermissa is out of my beat.  I live at

Hobson's Patch, and that's here where we are drawing up.  But, say, there's

one bit of advice I'll give you before we part:  If you're in trouble in

Vermissa, go straight to the Union House and see Boss McGinty.  He is the

Bodymaster of Vermissa Lodge, and nothing can happen in these parts unless

Black Jack McGinty wants it.  So long, mate!  Maybe we'll meet in lodge one of

these evenings.  But mind my words:  If you are in trouble, go to Boss

McGinty."

     Scanlan descended, and McMurdo was left once again to his thoughts.

Night had now fallen, and the flames of the frequent furnaces were roaring and

leaping in the darkness.  Against their lurid background dark figures were

bending and straining, twisting and turning, with the motion of winch or of

windlass, to the rhythm of an eternal clank and roar.

     "I guess hell must look something like that," said a voice.

     McMurdo turned and saw that one of the policemen had shifted in his seat

and was staring out into the fiery waste.

     "For that matter," said the other policeman, "I allow that hell must be

something like that.  If there are worse devils down yonder than some we could

name, it's more than I'd expect.  I guess you are new to this part, young

man?"

     "Well, what if I am?" McMurdo answered in a surly voice.

     "Just this, mister, that I should advise you to be careful in choosing

your friends.  I don't think I'd begin with Mike Scanlan or his gang if I were

you."

     "What the hell is it to you who are my friends?" roared McMurdo in a

voice which brought every head in the carriage round to witness the

altercation.  "Did I ask you for your advice, or did you think me such a

sucker that I couldn't move without it?  You speak when you are spoken to, and

by the Lord you'd have to wait a long time if it was me!"  He thrust out his

face and grinned at the patrolmen like a snarling dog.

     The two policemen, heavy, good-natured men, were taken aback by the

extraordinary vehemence with which their friendly advances had been rejected.

     "No offense, stranger," said one.  "It was a warning for your own good,

seeing that you are, by your own showing, new to the place."

     "I'm new to the place; but I'm not new to you and your kind!" cried

McMurdo in cold fury.  "I guess you're the same in all places, shoving your

advice in when nobody asks for it."

     "Maybe we'll see more of you before very long," said one of the patrolmen

with a grin.  "You're a real hand-picked one, if I am a judge."

     "I was thinking the same," remarked the other.  "I guess we may meet

again."

     "I'm not afraid of you, and don't you think it!" cried McMurdo.  "My

name's Jack McMurdo--see?  If you want me, you'll find me at Jacob Shafter's

on Sheridan Street, Vermissa; so I'm not hiding from you, am I?  Day or night

I dare to look the like of you in the face--don't make any mistake about

that!"

     There was a murmur of sympathy and admiration from the miners at the

dauntless demeanour of the newcomer, while the two policemen shrugged their

shoulders and renewed a conversation between themselves.

     A few minutes later the train ran into the ill-lit station, and there was

a general clearing; for Vermissa was by far the largest town on the line.

McMurdo picked up his leather gripsack and was about to start off into the

darkness, when one of the miners accosted him.

     "By Gar, mate! you know how to speak to the cops," he said in a voice of

awe.  "It was grand to hear you.  Let me carry your grip and show you the

road.  I'm passing Shafter's on the way to my own shack."

     There was a chorus of friendly "Good-nights" from the other miners as

they passed from the platform.  Before ever he had set foot in it, McMurdo the

turbulent had become a character in Vermissa.

     The country had been a place of terror; but the town was in its way even

more depressing.  Down that long valley there was at least a certain gloomy

grandeur in the huge fires and the clouds of drifting smoke, while the

strength and industry of man found fitting monuments in the hills which he had

spilled by the side of his monstrous excavations.  But the town showed a dead

level of mean ugliness and squalor.  The broad street was churned up by the

traffic into a horrible rutted paste of muddy snow.  The sidewalks were narrow

and uneven.  The numerous gas-lamps served only to show more clearly a long

line of wooden houses, each with its veranda facing the street, unkempt and

dirty.

     As they approached the centre of the town the scene was brightened by a

row of well-lit stores, and even more by a cluster of saloons and gaming

houses, in which the miners spent their hard-earned but generous wages.

     "That's the Union House," said the guide, pointing to one saloon which

rose almost to the dignity of being a hotel.  "Jack McGinty is the boss

there."

     "What sort of a man is he?" McMurdo asked.

     "What! have you never heard of the boss?"

     "How could I have heard of him when you know that I am a stranger in

these parts?"

     "Well, I thought his name was known clear across the country.  It's been

in the papers often enough."

     "What for?"

     "Well," the miner lowered his voice--"over the affairs."

     "What affairs?"

     "Good Lord, mister! you are queer, if I must say it without offense.

There's only one set of affairs that you'll hear of in these parts, and that's

the affairs of the Scowrers."

     "Why, I seem to have read of the Scowrers in Chicago.  A gang of

murderers, are they not?"

     "Hush, on your life!" cried the miner, standing still in alarm, and

gazing in amazement at his companion.  "Man, you won't live long in these

parts if you speak in the open street like that.  Many a man has had the life

beaten out of him for less."

     "Well, I know nothing about them.  It's only what I have read."

     "And I'm not saying that you have not read the truth."  The man looked

nervously round him as he spoke, peering into the shadows as if he feared to

see some lurking danger.  "If killing is murder, then God knows there is

murder and to spare.  But don't you dare to breathe the name of Jack McGinty

in connection with it, stranger; for every whisper goes back to him, and he is

not one that is likely to let it pass.  Now, that's the house you're after,

that one standing back from the street.  You'll find old Jacob Shafter that

runs it as honest a man as lives in this township."

     "I thank you," said McMurdo, and shaking hands with his new acquaintance

he plodded, gripsack in hand, up the path which led to the dwelling house, at

the door of which he gave a resounding knock.

     It was opened at once by someone very different from what he had

expected.  It was a woman, young and singularly beautiful.  She was of the

German type, blonde and fair-haired, with the piquant contrast of a pair of

beautiful dark eyes with which she surveyed the stranger with surprise and a

pleasing embarrassment which brought a wave of colour over her pale face.

Framed in the bright light of the open doorway, it seemed to McMurdo that he

had never seen a more beautiful picture; the more attractive for its contrast

with the sordid and gloomy surroundings.  A lovely violet growing upon one of

those black slag-heaps of the mines would not have seemed more surprising.  So

entranced was he that he stood staring without a word, and it was she who

broke the silence.

     "I thought it was father," said she with a pleasing little touch of a

German accent.  "Did you come to see him?  He is down town.  I expect him back

every minute."

     McMurdo continued to gaze at her in open admiration until her eyes

dropped in confusion before this masterful visitor.

     "No, miss," he said at last, "I'm in no hurry to see him.  But your house

was recommended to me for board.  I thought it might suit me--and now I know

it will."

     "You are quick to make up your mind," said she with a smile.

     "Anyone but a blind man could do as much," the other answered.

     She laughed at the compliment.  "Come right in, sir," she said.  "I'm

Miss Ettie Shafter, Mr. Shafter's daughter.  My mother's dead, and I run the

house.  You can sit down by the stove in the front room until father comes

along-- -- Ah, here he is!  So you can fix things with him right away."

     A heavy, elderly man came plodding up the path.  In a few words McMurdo

explained his business.  A man of the name of Murphy had given him the address

in Chicago.  He in turn had had it from someone else.  Old Shafter was quite

ready.  The stranger made no bones about terms, agreed at once to every

condition, and was apparently fairly flush of money.  For seven dollars a week

paid in advance he was to have board and lodging.

     So it was that McMurdo, the self-confessed fugitive from justice, took up

his abode under the roof of the Shafters, the first step which was to lead to

so long and dark a train of events, ending in a far distant land.

$Unique_ID{SLH00086}

$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Scowrers; The Bodymaster}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

$Subject{}

$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

$Log{Plate A*0007801.scf

Plate B*0007802.scf}

                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 2

                                 THE SCOWRERS

                                  Chapter 2

                                THE BODYMASTER

McMURDO was a man who made his mark quickly.  Wherever he was the folk around

soon knew it.  Within a week he had become infinitely the most important

person at Shafter's.  There were ten or a dozen boarders there; but they were

honest foremen or commonplace clerks from the stores, of a very different

calibre from the young Irishman.  Of an evening when they gathered together

his joke was always the readiest, his conversation the brightest, and his song

the best.  He was a born boon companion, with a magnetism which drew good

humour from all around him.

     And yet he showed again and again, as he had shown in the railway

carriage, a capacity for sudden, fierce anger, which compelled the respect and

even the fear of those who met him.  For the law, too, and all who were

connected with it, he exhibited a bitter contempt which delighted some and

alarmed others of his fellow boarders.

     From the first he made it evident, by his open admiration, that the

daughter of the house had won his heart from the instant that he had set eyes

upon her beauty and her grace.  He was no backward suitor.  On the second day

he told her that he loved her, and from then onward he repeated the same story

with an absolute disregard of what she might say to discourage him.

     "Someone else?" he would cry.  "Well, the worse luck for someone else!

Let him look out for himself!  Am I to lose my life's chance and all my

heart's desire for someone else?  You can keep on saying no, Ettie:  the day

will come when you will say yes, and I'm young enough to wait."

     He was a dangerous suitor, with his glib Irish tongue, and his pretty,

coaxing ways.  There was about him also that glamour of experience and of

mystery which attracts a woman's interest, and finally her love.  He could

talk of the sweet valleys of County Monaghan from which he came, of the

lovely, distant island, the low hills and green meadows of which seemed the

more beautiful when imagination viewed them from this place of grime and snow.

     Then he was versed in the life of the cities of the North, of Detroit,

and the lumber camps of Michigan, and finally of Chicago, where he had worked

in a planing mill.  And afterwards came the hint of romance, the feeling that

strange things had happened to him in that great city, so strange and so

intimate that they might not be spoken of.  He spoke wistfully of a sudden

leaving, a breaking of old ties, a flight into a strange world, ending in this

dreary valley, and Ettie listened, her dark eyes gleaming with pity and with

sympathy--those two qualities which may turn so rapidly and so naturally to

love.

     McMurdo had obtained a temporary job as bookkeeper; for he was a well

educated man.  This kept him out most of the day, and he had not found

occasion yet to report himself to the head of the lodge of the Eminent Order

of Freemen.  He was reminded of his omission, however, by a visit one evening

from Mike Scanlan, the fellow member whom he had met in the train.  Scanlan,

the small, sharp-faced, nervous, black-eyed man, seemed glad to see him once

more.  After a glass or two of whisky he broached the object of his visit.

     "Say, McMurdo," said he, "I remembered your address, so I made bold to

call.  I'm surprised that you've not reported to the Bodymaster.  Why haven't

you seen Boss McGinty yet?"

     "Well, I had to find a job.  I have been busy."

     "You must find time for him if you have none for anything else.  Good

Lord, man! you're a fool not to have been down to the Union House and

registered your name the first morning after you came here!  If you run

against him--well, you mustn't, that's all!"

     McMurdo showed mild surprise.  "I've been a member of the lodge for over

two years, Scanlan, but I never heard that duties were so pressing as all

that."

     "Maybe not in Chicago."

     "Well, it's the same society here."

     "Is it?"

     Scanlan looked at him long and fixedly.  There was something sinister in

his eyes.

     "Isn't it?"

     "You'll tell me that in a month's time.  I hear you had a talk with the

patrolmen after I left the train."

     "How did you know that?"

     "Oh, it got about--things do get about for good and for bad in this

district."

     "Well, yes.  I told the hounds what I thought of them."

     "By the Lord, you'll be a man after McGinty's heart!"

     "What, does he hate the police too?"

     Scanlan burst out laughing.  "You go and see him, my lad," said he as he

took his leave.  "It's not the police but you that he'll hate if you don't!

Now, take a friend's advice and go at once!"

     It chanced that on the same evening McMurdo had another more pressing

interview which urged him in the same direction.  It may have been that his

attentions to Ettie had been more evident than before, or that they had

gradually obtruded themselves into the slow mind of his good German host; but,

whatever the cause, the boarding-house keeper beckoned the young man into his

private room and started on the subject without any circumlocution.

     "It seems to me, mister," said he, "that you are gettin' set on my Ettie.

Ain't that so, or am I wrong?"

     "Yes, that is so," the young man answered.

     "Vell, I vant to tell you right now that it ain't no manner of use.

There's someone slipped in afore you."

     "She told me so."

     "Vell, you can lay that she told you truth.  But did she tell you who it

vas?"

     "No, I asked her; but she wouldn't tell."

     "I dare say not, the leetle baggage!  Perhaps she did not vish to

frighten you avay."

     "Frighten!"  McMurdo was on fire in a moment.

     "Ah, yes, my friend!  You need not be ashamed to be frightened of him.

It is Teddy Baldwin."

     "And who the devil is he?"

     "He is a boss of Scowrers."

     "Scowrers!  I've heard of them before.  It's Scowrers here and Scowrers

there, and always in a whisper!  What are you all afraid of?  Who are the

Scowrers?"

     The boarding-house keeper instinctively sank his voice, as everyone did

who talked about that terrible society.  "The Scowrers," said he, "are the

Eminent Order of Freemen!"

     The young man stared.  "Why, I am a member of that order myself."

     "You!  I vould never have had you in my house if I had known it--not if

you vere to pay me a hundred dollar a veek."

     "What's wrong with the order?  It's for charity and good fellowship.  The

rules say so."

     "Maybe in some places.  Not here!"

     "What is it here?"

     "It's a murder society, that's vat it is."

     McMurdo laughed incredulously.  "How can you prove that?" he asked.

     "Prove it!  Are there not fifty murders to prove it?  Vat about Milman

and Van Shorst, and the Nicholson family, and old Mr. Hyam, and little Billy

James, and the others?  Prove it!  Is there a man or a voman in this valley

vat does not know it?"

     "See here!" said McMurdo earnestly.  "I want you to take back what you've

said, or else make it good.  One or the other you must do before I quit this

room.  Put yourself in my place.  Here am I, a stranger in the town.  I belong

to a society that I know only as an innocent one.  You'll find it through the

length and breadth of the States; but always as an innocent one.  Now, when I

am counting upon joining it here, you tell me that it is the same as a murder

society called the Scowrers.  I guess you owe me either an apology or else an

explanation, Mr. Shafter."

     "I can but tell you vat the whole vorld knows, mister.  The bosses of the

one are the bosses of the other.  If you offend the one, it is the other vat

vill strike you.  We have proved it too often."

     "That's just gossip--I want proof!" said McMurdo.

     "If you live here long you vill get your proof.  But I forget that you

are yourself one of them.  You vill soon be as bad as the rest.  But you vill

find other lodgings, mister.  I cannot have you here.  Is it not bad enough

that one of these people come courting my Ettie, and that I dare not turn him

down, but that I should have another for my boarder?  Yes, indeed, you shall

not sleep here after to-night!"

     McMurdo found himself under sentence of banishment both from his

comfortable quarters and from the girl whom he loved.  He found her alone in

the sitting-room that same evening, and he poured his troubles into her ear.

     "Sure, your father is after giving me notice," he said.  "It's little I

would care if it was just my room, but indeed, Ettie, though it's only a week

that I've known you, you are the very breath of life to me, and I can't live

without you!"

     "Oh, hush, Mr. McMurdo, don't speak so!" said the girl.  "I have told

you, have I not, that you are too late?  There is another, and if I have not

promised to marry him at once, at least I can promise no one else."

     "Suppose I had been first, Ettie, would I have had a chance?"

     The girl sank her face into her hands.  "I wish to heaven that you had

been first!" she sobbed.

     McMurdo was down on his knees before her in an instant.  "For God's sake,

Ettie, let it stand at that!" he cried.  "Will you ruin your life and my own

for the sake of this promise?  Follow your heart, acushla!  'Tis a safer guide

than any promise before you knew what it was that you were saying."

     He had seized Ettie's white hand between his own strong brown ones.

     "Say that you will be mine, and we will face it out together!"

     "Not here?"

     "Yes, here."

     "No, no, Jack!"  His arms were round her now.  "It could not be here.

Could you take me away?"

     A struggle passed for a moment over McMurdo's face; but it ended by

setting like granite.  "No, here," he said.  "I'll hold you against the world,

Ettie, right here where we are!"

     "Why should we not leave together?"

     "No, Ettie, I can't leave here."

     "But why?"

     "I'd never hold my head up again if I felt that I had been driven out.

Besides, what is there to be afraid of?  Are we not free folks in a free

country?  If you love me, and I you, who will dare to come between?"

     "You don't know, Jack.  You've been here too short a time.  You don't

know this Baldwin.  You don't know McGinty and his Scowrers."

     "No, I don't know them, and I don't fear them, and I don't believe in

them!" said McMurdo.  "I've lived among rough men, my darling, and instead of

fearing them it has always ended that they have feared me--always, Ettie.

It's mad on the face of it!  If these men, as your father says, have done

crime after crime in the valley, and if everyone knows them by name, how comes

it that none are brought to justice?  You answer me that, Ettie!"

     "Because no witness dares to appear against them.  He would not live a

month if he did.  Also because they have always their own men to swear that

the accused one was far from the scene of the crime.  But surely, Jack, you

must have read all this.  I had understood that every paper in the United

States was writing about it."

     "Well, I have read something, it is true; but I had thought it was a

story.  Maybe these men have some reason in what they do.  Maybe they are

wronged and have no other way to help themselves."

     "Oh, Jack, don't let me hear you speak so!  That is how he speaks--the

other one!"

     "Baldwin--he speaks like that, does he?"

     "And that is why I loathe him so.  Oh, Jack, now I can tell you the

truth.  I loathe him with all my heart; but I fear him also.  I fear him for

myself; but above all I fear him for father.  I know that some great sorrow

would come upon us if I dared to say what I really felt.  That is why I have

put him off with half-promises.  It was in real truth our only hope.  But if

you would fly with me, Jack, we could take father with us and live forever far

from the power of these wicked men."

     Again there was the struggle upon McMurdo's face, and again it set like

granite.  "No harm shall come to you, Ettie--nor to your father either.  As to

wicked men, I expect you may find that I am as bad as the worst of them before

we're through."

     "No, no, Jack!  I would trust you anywhere."

     McMurdo laughed bitterly.  "Good Lord! how little you know of me!  Your

innocent soul, my darling, could not even guess what is passing in mine.  But,

hullo, who's the visitor?"

     The door had opened suddenly, and a young fellow came swaggering in with

the air of one who is the master.  He was a handsome, dashing young man of

about the same age and build as McMurdo himself.  Under his broad-brimmed

black felt hat, which he had not troubled to remove, a handsome face with

fierce, domineering eyes and a curved hawk-bill of a nose looked savagely at

the pair who sat by the stove.

     Ettie had jumped to her feet full of confusion and alarm.  "I'm glad to

see you, Mr. Baldwin," said she.  "You're earlier than I had thought.  Come

and sit down."

     Baldwin stood with his hands on his hips looking at McMurdo.  "Who is

this?" he asked curtly.

     "It's a friend of mine, Mr. Baldwin, a new boarder here.  Mr. McMurdo,

may I introduce you to Mr. Baldwin?"

     The young men nodded in surly fashion to each other.

     "Maybe Miss Ettie has told you how it is with us?" said Baldwin.

     "I didn't understand that there was any relation between you."

     "Didn't you?  Well, you can understand it now.  You can take it from me

that this young lady is mine, and you'll find it a very fine evening for a

walk."

     "Thank you, I am in no humour for a walk."

     "Aren't you?"  The man's savage eyes were blazing with anger.  "Maybe you

are in a humour for a fight, Mr. Boarder!"

     "That I am!" cried McMurdo, springing to his feet.  "You never said a

more welcome word."

     "For God's sake, Jack!  Oh, for God's sake!" cried poor, distracted

Ettie.  "Oh, Jack, Jack, he will hurt you!"

     "Oh, it's Jack, is it?" said Baldwin with an oath.  "You've come to that

already, have you?"

     "Oh, Ted, be reasonable--be kind!  For my sake, Ted, if ever you loved

me, be big-hearted and forgiving!"

     "I think, Ettie, that if you were to leave us alone we could get this

thing settled," said McMurdo quietly.  "Or maybe, Mr. Baldwin, you will take a

turn down the street with me.  It's a fine evening, and there's some open

ground beyond the next block."

     "I'll get even with you without needing to dirty my hands," said his

enemy.  "You'll wish you had never set foot in this house before I am through

with you!"

     "No time like the present," cried McMurdo.

     "I'll choose my own time, mister.  You can leave the time to me.  See

here!"  He suddenly rolled up his sleeve and showed upon his forearm a

peculiar sign which appeared to have been branded there.  It was a circle with

a triangle within it.  "D'you know what that means?"

     "I neither know nor care!"

     "Well, you will know, I'll promise you that.  You won't be much older,

either.  Perhaps Miss Ettie can tell you something about it.  As to you,

Ettie, you'll come back to me on your knees--d'ye hear, girl?--on your

knees--and then I'll tell you what your punishment may be.  You've sowed--and

by the Lord, I'll see that you reap!"  He glanced at them both in fury.  Then

he turned upon his heel, and an instant later the outer door had banged behind

him.

     For a few moments McMurdo and the girl stood in silence.  Then she threw

her arms around him.

     "Oh, Jack, how brave you were!  But it is no use, you must fly!  To-night

--Jack--to-night!  It's your only hope.  He will have your life.  I read it in

his horrible eyes.  What chance have you against a dozen of them, with Boss

McGinty and all the power of the lodge behind them?"

     McMurdo disengaged her hands, kissed her, and gently pushed her back into

a chair.  "There, acushla, there!  Don't be disturbed or fear for me.  I'm a

Freeman myself.  I'm after telling your father about it.  Maybe I am no better

than the others; so don't make a saint of me.  Perhaps you hate me too, now

that I've told you as much?"

     "Hate you, Jack?  While life lasts I could never do that!  I've heard

that there is no harm in being a Freeman anywhere but here; so why should I

think the worse of you for that?  But if you are a Freeman, Jack, why should

you not go down and make a friend of Boss McGinty?  Oh, hurry, Jack, hurry!

Get your word in first, or the hounds will be on your trail."

     "I was thinking the same thing," said McMurdo.  "I'll go right now and

fix it.  You can tell your father that I'll sleep here to-night and find some

other quarters in the morning."

     The bar of McGinty's saloon was crowded as usual; for it was the

favourite loafing place of all the rougher elements of the town.  The man was

popular; for he had a rough, jovial disposition which formed a mask, covering

a great deal which lay behind it.  But apart from this popularity, the fear in

which he was held throughout the township, and indeed down the whole thirty

miles of the valley and past the mountains on each side of it, was enough in

itself to fill his bar; for none could afford to neglect his good will.

     Besides those secret powers which it was universally believed that he

exercised in so pitiless a fashion, he was a high public official, a municipal

councillor, and a commissioner of roads, elected to the office through the

votes of the ruffians who in turn expected to receive favours at his hands.

Assessments and taxes were enormous; the public works were notoriously

neglected, the accounts were slurred over by bribed auditors, and the decent

citizen was terrorized into paying public blackmail, and holding his tongue

lest some worse thing befall him.

     Thus it was that, year by year, Boss McGinty's diamond pins became more

obtrusive, his gold chains more weighty across a more gorgeous vest, and his

saloon stretched farther and farther, until it threatened to absorb one whole

side of the Market Square.

     McMurdo pushed open the swinging door of the saloon and made his way amid

the crowd of men within, through an atmosphere blurred with tobacco smoke and

heavy with the smell of spirits.  The place was brilliantly lighted, and the

huge, heavily gilt mirrors upon every wall reflected and multiplied the garish

illumination.  There were several bartenders in their shirt sleeves, hard at

work mixing drinks for the loungers who fringed the broad, brass-trimmed

counter.

     At the far end, with his body resting upon the bar and a cigar stuck at

an acute angle from the corner of his mouth, stood a tall, strong, heavily

built man who could be none other than the famous McGinty himself.  He was a

black-maned giant, bearded to the cheek-bones, and with a shock of raven hair

which fell to his collar.  His complexion was as swarthy as that of an

Italian, and his eyes were of a strange dead black, which, combined with a

slight squint, gave them a particularly sinister appearance.

     All else in the man--his noble proportions, his fine features, and his

frank bearing--fitted in with that jovial, man-to-man manner which he

affected.  Here, one would say, is a bluff, honest fellow, whose heart would

be sound however rude his outspoken words might seem.  It was only when those

dead, dark eyes, deep and remorseless, were turned upon a man that he shrank

within himself, feeling that he was face to face with an infinite possibility

of latent evil, with a strength and courage and cunning behind it which made

it a thousand times more deadly.

     Having had a good look at his man, McMurdo elbowed his way forward with

his usual careless audacity, and pushed himself through the little group of

courtiers who were fawning upon the powerful boss, laughing uproariously at

the smallest of his jokes.  The young stranger's bold gray eyes looked back

fearlessly through their glasses at the deadly black ones which turned sharply

upon him.

     "Well, young man, I can't call your face to mind."

     "I'm new here, Mr. McGinty."

     "You are not so new that you can't give a gentleman his proper title."

     "He's Councillor McGinty, young man," said a voice from the group.

     "I'm sorry, Councillor.  I'm strange to the ways of the place.  But I was

advised to see you."

     "Well, you see me.  This is all there is.  What d'you think of me?"

     "Well, it's early days.  If your heart is as big as your body, and your

soul as fine as your face, then I'd ask for nothing better," said McMurdo.

     "By Gar! you've got an Irish tongue in your head anyhow," cried the

saloonkeeper, not quite certain whether to humour this audacious visitor or to

stand upon his dignity.

     "So you are good enough to pass my appearance?"

     "Sure," said McMurdo.

     "And you were told to see me?"

     "I was."

     "And who told you?"

     "Brother Scanlan of Lodge 341, Vermissa.  I drink your health,

Councillor, and to our better acquaintance."  He raised a glass with which he

had been served to his lips and elevated his little finger as he drank it.

     McGinty, who had been watching him narrowly, raised his thick black

eyebrows.  "Oh, it's like that, is it?" said he.  "I'll have to look a bit

closer into this, Mister-- --"

     "McMurdo."

     "A bit closer, Mr. McMurdo; for we don't take folk on trust in these

parts, nor believe all we're told neither.  Come in here for a moment, behind

the bar."

     There was a small room there, lined with barrels.  McGinty carefully

closed the door, and then seated himself on one of them, biting thoughtfully

on his cigar and surveying his companion with those disquieting eyes.  For a

couple of minutes he sat in complete silence.  McMurdo bore the inspection

cheerfully, one hand in his coat pocket, the other twisting his brown

moustache.  Suddenly McGinty stooped and produced a wicked-looking revolver.

     "See here, my joker," said he, "if I thought you were playing any game on

us, it would be short work for you."

     "This is a strange welcome," McMurdo answered with some dignity, "for the

Bodymaster of a lodge of Freemen to give to a stranger brother."

     "Ay, but it's just that same that you have to prove," said McGinty, "and

God help you if you fail!  Where were you made?"

     "Lodge 29, Chicago."

     "When?"

     "June 24, 1872."

     "What Bodymaster?"

     "James H. Scott."

     "Who is your district ruler?"

     "Bartholomew Wilson."

     "Hum!  You seem glib enough in your tests.  What are you doing here?"

     "Working, the same as you--but a poorer job."

     "You have your back answer quick enough."

     "Yes, I was always quick of speech."

     "Are you quick of action?"

     "I have had that name among those that knew me best."

     "Well, we may try you sooner than you think.  Have you heard anything of

the lodge in these parts?"

     "I've heard that it takes a man to be a brother."

     "True for you, Mr. McMurdo.  Why did you leave Chicago?"

     "I'm damned if I tell you that!"

     McGinty opened his eyes.  He was not used to being answered in such

fashion, and it amused him.  "Why won't you tell me?"

     "Because no brother may tell another a lie."

     "Then the truth is too bad to tell?"

     "You can put it that way if you like."

     "See here, mister, you can't expect me, as Bodymaster, to pass into the

lodge a man for whose past he can't answer."

     McMurdo looked puzzled.  Then he took a worn newspaper cutting from an

inner pocket.

     "You wouldn't squeal on a fellow?" said he.

     "I'll wipe my hand across your face if you say such words to me!" cried

McGinty hotly.

     "You are right, Councillor," said McMurdo meekly.  "I should apologize.

I spoke without thought.  Well, I know that I am safe in your hands.  Look at

that clipping."

     McGinty glanced his eyes over the account of the shooting of one Jonas

Pinto, in the Lake Saloon, Market Street, Chicago, in the New Year week of

1874.

     "Your work?" he asked, as he handed back the paper.

     McMurdo nodded.

     "Why did you shoot him?"

     "I was helping Uncle Sam to make dollars.  Maybe mine were not as good

gold as his, but they looked as well and were cheaper to make.  This man Pinto

helped me to shove the queer-- --"

     "To do what?"

     "Well, it means to pass the dollars out into circulation.  Then he said

he would split.  Maybe he did split.  I didn't wait to see.  I just killed him

and lighted out for the coal country."

     "Why the coal country?"

     "'Cause I'd read in the papers that they weren't too particular in those

parts."

     McGinty laughed.  "You were first a coiner and then a murderer, and you

came to these parts because you thought you'd be welcome."

     "That's about the size of it," McMurdo answered.

     "Well, I guess you'll go far.  Say, can you make those dollars yet?"

     McMurdo took half a dozen from his pocket.  "Those never passed the

Philadelphia mint," said he.

     "You don't say!" McGinty held them to the light in his enormous hand,

which was hairy as a gorilla's.  "I can see no difference.  Gar! you'll be a

mighty useful brother, I'm thinking!  We can do with a bad man or two among

us, Friend McMurdo:  for there are times when we have to take our own part.

We'd soon be against the wall if we didn't shove back at those that were

pushing us."

     "Well, I guess I'll do my share of shoving with the rest of the boys."

     "You seem to have a good nerve.  You didn't squirm when I shoved this gun

at you."

     "It was not me that was in danger."

     "Who then?"

     "It was you, Councillor."  McMurdo drew a cocked pistol from the side

pocket of his pea-jacket.  "I was covering you all the time.  I guess my shot

would have been as quick as yours."

     "By Gar!"  McGinty flushed an angry red and then burst into a roar of

laughter.  "Say, we've had no such holy terror come to hand this many a year.

I reckon the lodge will learn to be proud of you. . . .  Well, what the hell

do you want?  And can't I speak alone with a gentleman for five minutes but

you must butt in on us?"

     The bartender stood abashed.  "I'm sorry, Councillor, but it's Ted

Baldwin.  He says he must see you this very minute."

     The message was unnecessary; for the set, cruel face of the man himself

was looking over the servant's shoulder.  He pushed the bartender out and

closed the door on him.

     "So," said he with a furious glance at McMurdo, "you got here first, did

you?  I've a word to say to you, Councillor, about this man."

     "Then say it here and now before my face," cried McMurdo.

     "I'll say it at my own time, in my own way."

     "Tut!  Tut!" said McGinty, getting off his barrel.  "This will never do.

We have a new brother here, Baldwin, and it's not for us to greet him in such

fashion.  Hold out your hand, man, and make it up!"

     "Never!" cried Baldwin in a fury.

     "I've offered to fight him if he thinks I have wronged him," said

McMurdo.  "I'll fight him with fists, or, if that won't satisfy him, I'll

fight him any other way he chooses.  Now, I'll leave it to you, Councillor, to

judge between us as a Bodymaster should."

     "What is it, then?"

     "A young lady.  She's free to choose for herself."

     "Is she?" cried Baldwin.

     "As between two brothers of the lodge I should say that she was," said

the Boss.

     "Oh, that's your ruling, is it?"

     "Yes, it is, Ted Baldwin," said McGinty, with a wicked stare.  "Is it you

that would dispute it?"

     "You would throw over one that has stood by you this five years in favour

of a man that you never saw before in your life?  You're not Bodymaster for

life, Jack McGinty, and by God! when next it comes to a vote-- --"

     The Councillor sprang at him like a tiger.  His hand closed round the

other's neck, and he hurled him back across one of the barrels.  In his mad

fury he would have squeezed the life out of him if McMurdo had not interfered.

     "Easy, Councillor!  For heaven's sake, go easy!" he cried, as he dragged

him back.

     McGinty released his hold, and Baldwin, cowed and shaken, gasping for

breath, and shivering in every limb, as one who has looked over the very edge

of death, sat up on the barrel over which he had been hurled.

     "You've been asking for it this many a day, Ted Baldwin--now you've got

it!" cried McGinty, his huge chest rising and falling.  "Maybe you think if I

was voted down from Bodymaster you would find yourself in my shoes.  It's for

the lodge to say that.  But so long as I am the chief I'll have no man lift

his voice against me or my rulings."

     "I have nothing against you," mumbled Baldwin, feeling his throat.

     "Well, then," cried the other, relapsing in a moment into a bluff

joviality, "we are all good friends again and there's an end of the matter."

     He took a bottle of champagne down from the shelf and twisted out the

cork.

     "See now," he continued, as he filled three high glasses.  "Let us drink

the quarrelling toast of the lodge.  After that, as you know, there can be no

bad blood between us.  Now, then, the left hand on the apple of my throat.  I

say to you, Ted Baldwin, what is the offense, sir?"

     "The clouds are heavy," answered Baldwin.

     "But they will forever brighten."

     "And this I swear!"

     The men drank their glasses, and the same ceremony was performed between

Baldwin and McMurdo.

     "There!" cried McGinty, rubbing his hands.  "That's the end of the black

blood.  You come under lodge discipline if it goes further, and that's a heavy

hand in these parts, as Brother Baldwin knows--and as you will damn soon find

out, Brother McMurdo, if you ask for trouble!"

     "Faith, I'd be slow to do that," said McMurdo.  He held out his hand to

Baldwin.  "I'm quick to quarrel and quick to forgive.  It's my hot Irish

blood, they tell me.  But it's over for me, and I bear no grudge."

     Baldwin had to take the proffered hand; for the baleful eye of the

terrible Boss was upon him.  But his sullen face showed how little the words

of the other had moved him.

     McGinty clapped them both on the shoulders.  "Tut!  These girls!  These

girls!" he cried.  "To think that the same petticoats should come between two

of my boys!  It's the devil's own luck!  Well, it's the colleen inside of them

that must settle the question; for it's outside the jurisdiction of a

Bodymaster-- and the Lord be praised for that!  We have enough on us, without

the women as well.  You'll have to be affiliated to Lodge 341, Brother

McMurdo.  We have our own ways and methods, different from Chicago.  Saturday

night is our meeting, and if you come then, we'll make you free forever of the

Vermissa Valley."

$Unique_ID{SLH00087}

$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Scowrers; Lodge 341, Vermissa}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

$Subject{}

$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

$Log{Plate A*0007801.scf

Plate B*0007802.scf}

                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 2

                                 THE SCOWRERS

                                  Chapter 3

                             LODGE 341, VERMISSA

ON THE day following the evening which had contained so many exciting events,

McMurdo moved his lodgings from old Jacob Shafter's and took up his quarters

at the Widow MacNamara's on the extreme outskirts of the town.  Scanlan, his

original acquaintance aboard the train, had occasion shortly afterwards to

move into Vermissa, and the two lodged together.  There was no other boarder,

and the hostess was an easy-going old Irishwoman who left them to themselves;

so that they had a freedom for speech and action welcome to men who had

secrets in common.

     Shafter had relented to the extent of letting McMurdo come to his meals

there when he liked; so that his intercourse with Ettie was by no means

broken.  On the contrary, it drew closer and more intimate as the weeks went

by.

     In his bedroom at his new abode McMurdo felt it safe to take out the

coining moulds, and under many a pledge of secrecy a number of brothers from

the lodge were allowed to come in and see them, each carrying away in his

pocket some examples of the false money, so cunningly struck that there was

never the slightest difficulty or danger in passing it.  Why, with such a

wonderful art at his command, McMurdo should condescend to work at all was a

perpetual mystery to his companions; though he made it clear to anyone who

asked him that if he lived without any visible means it would very quickly

bring the police upon his track.

     One policeman was indeed after him already; but the incident, as luck

would have it, did the adventurer a great deal more good than harm.  After the

first introduction there were few evenings when he did not find his way to

McGinty's saloon, there to make closer acquaintance with "the boys," which was

the jovial title by which the dangerous gang who infested the place were known

to one another.  His dashing manner and fearlessness of speech made him a

favourite with them all; while the rapid and scientific way in which he

polished off his antagonist in an "all in" bar-room scrap earned the respect

of that rough community.  Another incident, however, raised him even higher in

their estimation.

     Just at the crowded hour one night, the door opened and a man entered

with the quiet blue uniform and peaked cap of the mine police.  This was a

special body raised by the railways and colliery owners to supplement the

efforts of the ordinary civil police, who were perfectly helpless in the face

of the organized ruffianism which terrorized the district.  There was a hush

as he entered, and many a curious glance was cast at him; but the relations

between policemen and criminals are peculiar in some parts of the States, and

McGinty himself, standing behind his counter, showed no surprise when the

policeman enrolled himself among his customers.

     "A straight whisky; for the night is bitter," said the police officer.

"I don't think we have met before, Councillor?"

     "You'll be the new captain?" said McGinty.

     "That's so.  We're looking to you, Councillor, and to the other leading

citizens, to help us in upholding law and order in this township.  Captain

Marvin is my name."

     "We'd do better without you, Captain Marvin," said McGinty coldly; "for

we have our own police of the township, and no need for any imported goods.

What are you but the paid tool of the capitalists, hired by them to club or

shoot your poorer fellow citizen?"

     "Well, well, we won't argue about that," said the police officer

good-humouredly.  "I expect we all do our duty same as we see it; but we can't

all see it the same."  He had drunk off his glass and had turned to go, when

his eyes fell upon the face of Jack McMurdo, who was scowling at his elbow.

"Hullo! Hullo!" he cried, looking him up and down.  "Here's an old

acquaintance!"

     McMurdo shrank away from him.  "I was never a friend to you nor any other

cursed copper in my life," said he.

     "An acquaintance isn't always a friend," said the police captain,

grinning.  "You're Jack McMurdo of Chicago, right enough, and don't you deny

it!"

     McMurdo shrugged his shoulders.  "I'm not denying it," said he.  "D'ye

think I'm ashamed of my own name?"

     "You've got good cause to be, anyhow."

     "What the devil d'you mean by that?" he roared with his fists clenched.

     "No, no, Jack, bluster won't do with me.  I was an officer in Chicago

before ever I came to this darned coal bunker, and I know a Chicago crook when

I see one."

     McMurdo's face fell.  "Don't tell me that you're Marvin of the Chicago

Central!" he cried.

     "Just the same old Teddy Marvin, at your service.  We haven't forgotten

the shooting of Jonas Pinto up there."

     "I never shot him."

     "Did you not?  That's good impartial evidence, ain't it?  Well, his death

came in uncommon handy for you, or they would have had you for shoving the

queer.  Well, we can let that be bygones; for, between you and me--and perhaps

I'm going further than my duty in saying it--they could get no clear case

against you, and Chicago's open to you to-morrow."

     "I'm very well where I am."

     "Well, I've given you the pointer, and you're a sulky dog not to thank me

for it."

     "Well, I suppose you mean well, and I do thank you," said McMurdo in no

very gracious manner.

     "It's mum with me so long as I see you living on the straight," said the

captain.  "But, by the Lord! if you get off after this, it's another story!

So good-night to you--and good-night, Councillor."

     He left the barroom; but not before he had created a local hero.

McMurdo's deeds in far Chicago had been whispered before.  He had put off all

questions with a smile, as one who did not wish to have greatness thrust upon

him.  But now the thing was officially confirmed.  The bar loafers crowded

round him and shook him heartily by the hand.  He was free of the community

from that time on.  He could drink hard and show little trace of it; but that

evening, had his mate Scanlan not been at hand to lead him home, the feted

hero would surely have spent his night under the bar.

     On a Saturday night McMurdo was introduced to the lodge.  He had thought

to pass in without ceremony as being an initiate of Chicago; but there were

particular rites in Vermissa of which they were proud, and these had to be

undergone by every postulant.  The assembly met in a large room reserved for

such purposes at the Union House.  Some sixty members assembled at Vermissa;

but that by no means represented the full strength of the organization, for

there were several other lodges in the valley, and others across the mountains

on each side, who exchanged members when any serious business was afoot, so

that a crime might be done by men who were strangers to the locality.

Altogether there were not less than five hundred scattered over the coal

district.

     In the bare assembly room the men were gathered round a long table.  At

the side was a second one laden with bottles and glasses, on which some

members of the company were already turning their eyes.  McGinty sat at the

head with a flat black velvet cap upon his shock of tangled black hair, and a

coloured purple stole round his neck; so that he seemed to be a priest

presiding over some diabolical ritual.  To right and left of him were the

higher lodge officials, the cruel, handsome face of Ted Baldwin among them.

Each of these wore some scarf or medallion as emblem of his office.

     They were, for the most part, men of mature age; but the rest of the

company consisted of young fellows from eighteen to twenty-five, the ready and

capable agents who carried out the commands of their seniors.  Among the older

men were many whose features showed the tigerish, lawless souls within; but

looking at the rank and file it was difficult to believe that these eager and

open-faced young fellows were in very truth a dangerous gang of murderers,

whose minds had suffered such complete moral perversion that they took a

horrible pride in their proficiency at the business, and looked with deepest

respect at the man who had the reputation of making what they called "a clean

job."

     To their contorted natures it had become a spirited and chivalrous thing

to volunteer for service against some man who had never injured them, and whom

in many cases they had never seen in their lives.  The crime committed, they

quarrelled as to who had actually struck the fatal blow, and amused one

another and the company by describing the cries and contortions of the

murdered man.

     At first they had shown some secrecy in their arrangements; but at the

time which this narrative describes their proceedings were extraordinarily

open, for the repeated failures of the law had proved to them that, on the one

hand, no one would dare to witness against them, and on the other they had an

unlimited number of stanch witnesses upon whom they could call, and a well

filled treasure chest from which they could draw the funds to engage the best

legal talent in the state.  In ten long years of outrage there had been no

single conviction, and the only danger that ever threatened the Scowrers lay

in the victim himself --who, however outnumbered and taken by surprise, might

and occasionally did leave his mark upon his assailants.

     McMurdo had been warned that some ordeal lay before him; but no one would

tell him in what it consisted.  He was led now into an outer room by two

solemn brothers.  Through the plank partition he could hear the murmur of many

voices from the assembly within.  Once or twice he caught the sound of his own

name, and he knew that they were discussing his candidacy.  Then there entered

an inner guard with a green and gold sash across his chest.

     "The Bodymaster orders that he shall be trussed, blinded, and entered,"

said he.

     The three of them removed his coat, turned up the sleeve of his right

arm, and finally passed a rope round above the elbows and made it fast.  They

next placed a thick black cap right over his head and the upper part of his

face, so that he could see nothing.  He was then led into the assembly hall.

     It was pitch dark and very oppressive under his hood.  He heard the

rustle and murmur of the people round him, and then the voice of McGinty

sounded dull and distant through the covering of his ears.

     "John McMurdo," said the voice, "are you already a member of the Ancient

Order of Freemen?"

     He bowed in assent.

     "Is your lodge No. 29, Chicago?"

     He bowed again.

     "Dark nights are unpleasant," said the voice.

     "Yes, for strangers to travel," he answered.

     "The clouds are heavy."

     "Yes, a storm is approaching."

     "Are the brethren satisfied?" asked the Bodymaster.

     There was a general murmur of assent.

     "We know, Brother, by your sign and by your countersign that you are

indeed one of us," said McGinty.  "We would have you know, however, that in

this county and in other counties of these parts we have certain rites, and

also certain duties of our own which call for good men.  Are you ready to be

tested?"

     "I am."

     "Are you of stout heart?"

     "I am."

     "Take a stride forward to prove it."

     As the words were said he felt two hard points in front of his eyes,

pressing upon them so that it appeared as if he could not move forward without

a danger of losing them.  None the less, he nerved himself to step resolutely

out, and as he did so the pressure melted away.  There was a low murmur of

applause.

     "He is of stout heart," said the voice.  "Can you bear pain?"

     "As well as another," he answered.

     "Test him!"

     It was all he could do to keep himself from screaming out, for an

agonizing pain shot through his forearm.  He nearly fainted at the sudden

shock of it; but he bit his lip and clenched his hands to hide his agony.

     "I can take more than that," said he.

     This time there was loud applause.  A finer first appearance had never

been made in the lodge.  Hands clapped him on the back, and the hood was

plucked from his head.  He stood blinking and smiling amid the congratulations

of the brothers.

     "One last word, Brother McMurdo," said McGinty.  "You have already sworn

the oath of secrecy and fidelity, and you are aware that the punishment for

any breach of it is instant and inevitable death?"

     "I am," said McMurdo.

     "And you accept the rule of the Bodymaster for the time being under all

circumstances?"

     "I do."

     "Then in the name of Lodge 341, Vermissa, I welcome you to its privileges

and debates.  You will put the liquor on the table, Brother Scanlan, and we

will drink to our worthy brother."

     McMurdo's coat had been brought to him; but before putting it on he

examined his right arm, which still smarted heavily.  There on the flesh of

the forearm was a circle with a triangle within it, deep and red, as the

branding iron had left it.  One or two of his neighbours pulled up their

sleeves and showed their own lodge marks.

     "We've all had it," said one; "but not all as brave as you over it."

     "Tut!  It was nothing," said he; but it burned and ached all the same.

     When the drinks which followed the ceremony of initiation had all been

disposed of, the business of the lodge proceeded.  McMurdo, accustomed only to

the prosaic performances of Chicago, listened with open ears and more surprise

than he ventured to show to what followed.

     "The first business on the agenda paper," said McGinty, "is to read the

following letter from Division Master Windle of Merton County Lodge 249.  He

says:

          "DEAR SIR:

               "There is a job to be done on Andrew Rae of Rae & Sturmash,

          coal owners near this place.  You will remember that your lodge owes

          us a return, having had the service of two brethren in the matter of

          the patrolman last fall.  You will send two good men, they will be

          taken charge of by Treasurer Higgins of this lodge, whose address

          you know.  He will show them when to act and where.  Yours in

          freedom,

                                                   "J. W. WINDLE, D.M.A.O.F.

     "Windle has never refused us when we have had occasion to ask for the

loan of a man or two, and it is not for us to refuse him."  McGinty paused and

looked round the room with his dull, malevolent eyes.  "Who will volunteer for

the job?"

     Several young fellows held up their hands.  The Bodymaster looked at them

with an approving smile.

     "You'll do, Tiger Cormac.  If you handle it as well as you did the last,

you won't be wrong.  And you, Wilson."

     "I've no pistol," said the volunteer, a mere boy in his teens.

     "It's your first, is it not?  Well, you have to be blooded some time.  It

will be a great start for you.  As to the pistol, you'll find it waiting for

you, or I'm mistaken.  If you report yourselves on Monday, it will be time

enough.  You'll get a great welcome when you return."

     "Any reward this time?" asked Cormac, a thick-set, dark-faced,

brutal-looking young man, whose ferocity had earned him the nickname of

"Tiger."

     "Never mind the reward.  You just do it for the honour of the thing.

Maybe when it is done there will be a few odd dollars at the bottom of the

box."

     "What has the man done?" asked young Wilson.

     "Sure, it's not for the likes of you to ask what the man has done.  He

has been judged over there.  That's no business of ours.  All we have to do is

to carry it out for them, same as they would for us.  Speaking of that, two

brothers from the Merton lodge are coming over to us next week to do some

business in this quarter."

     "Who are they?" asked someone.

     "Faith, it is wiser not to ask.  If you know nothing, you can testify

nothing, and no trouble can come of it.  But they are men who will make a

clean job when they are about it."

     "And time, too!" cried Ted Baldwin.  "Folk are gettin' out of hand in

these parts.  It was only last week that three of our men were turned off by

Foreman Blaker.  It's been owing him a long time, and he'll get it full and

proper."

     "Get what?" McMurdo whispered to his neighbour.

     "The business end of a buckshot cartridge!" cried the man with a loud

laugh.  "What think you of our ways, Brother?"

     McMurdo's criminal soul seemed to have already absorbed the spirit of the

vile association of which he was now a member.  "I like it well," said he.

"'Tis a proper place for a lad of mettle."

     Several of those who sat around heard his words and applauded them.

     "What's that?" cried the black-maned Bodymaster from the end of the

table.

     "'Tis our new brother, sir, who finds our ways to his taste."

     McMurdo rose to his feet for an instant.  "I would say, Eminent

Bodymaster, that if a man should be wanted I should take it as an honour to be

chosen to help the lodge."

     There was great applause at this.  It was felt that a new sun was pushing

its rim above the horizon.  To some of the elders it seemed that the progress

was a little too rapid.

     "I would move," said the secretary, Harraway, a vulture-faced old

graybeard who sat near the chairman, "that Brother McMurdo should wait until

it is the good pleasure of the lodge to employ him."

     "Sure, that was what I meant; I'm in your hands," said McMurdo.

     "Your time will come, Brother," said the chairman.  "We have marked you

down as a willing man, and we believe that you will do good work in these

parts.  There is a small matter to-night in which you may take a hand if it so

please you."

     "I will wait for something that is worth while."

     "You can come to-night, anyhow, and it will help you to know what we

stand for in this community.  I will make the announcement later.  Meanwhile,"

he glanced at his agenda paper, "I have one or two more points to bring before

the meeting.  First of all, I will ask the treasurer as to our bank balance.

There is the pension to Jim Carnaway's widow.  He was struck down doing the

work of the lodge, and it is for us to see that she is not the loser."

     "Jim was shot last month when they tried to kill Chester Wilcox of Marley

Creek," McMurdo's neighbour informed him.

     "The funds are good at the moment," said the treasurer, with the bankbook

in front of him.  "The firms have been generous of late.  Max Linder & Co.

paid five hundred to be left alone.  Walker Brothers sent in a hundred; but I

took it on myself to return it and ask for five.  If I do not hear by

Wednesday, their winding gear may get out of order.  We had to burn their

breaker last year before they became reasonable.  Then the West Section

Coaling Company has paid its annual contribution.  We have enough on hand to

meet any obligations."

     "What about Archie Swindon?" asked a brother.

     "He has sold out and left the district.  The old devil left a note for us

to say that he had rather be a free crossing sweeper in New York than a large

mine owner under the power of a ring of blackmailers.  By Gar! it was as well

that he made a break for it before the note reached us!  I guess he won't show

his face in this valley again."

     An elderly, clean-shaved man with a kindly face and a good brow rose from

the end of the table which faced the chairman.  "Mr. Treasurer," he asked,

"may I ask who has bought the property of this man that we have driven out of

the district?"

     "Yes, Brother Morris.  It has been bought by the State & Merton County

Railroad Company."

     "And who bought the mines of Todman and of Lee that came into the market

in the same way last year?"

     "The same company, Brother Morris."

     "And who bought the ironworks of Manson and of Shuman, and of Van Deher

and of Atwood, which have all been given up of late?"

     "They were all bought by the West Gilmerton General Mining Company."

     "I don't see, Brother Morris," said the chairman, "that it matters to us

who buys them, since they can't carry them out of the district."

     "With all respect to you, Eminent Bodymaster, I think it may matter very

much to us.  This process has been going on now for ten long years.  We are

gradually driving all the small men out of trade.  What is the result?  We

find in their places great companies like the Railroad or the General Iron,

who have their directors in New York or Philadelphia, and care nothing for our

threats.  We can take it out of their local bosses; but it only means that

others will be sent in their stead.  And we are making it dangerous for

ourselves.  The small men could not harm us.  They had not the money nor the

power.  So long as we did not squeeze them too dry, they would stay on under

our power.  But if these big companies find that we stand between them and

their profits, they will spare no pains and no expense to hunt us down and

bring us to court."

     There was a hush at these ominous words, and every face darkened as

gloomy looks were exchanged.  So omnipotent and unchallenged had they been

that the very thought that there was possible retribution in the background

had been banished from their minds.  And yet the idea struck a chill to the

most reckless of them.

     "It is my advice," the speaker continued, "that we go easier upon the

small men.  On the day that they have all been driven out the power of this

society will have been broken."

     Unwelcome truths are not popular.  There were angry cries as the speaker

resumed his seat.  McGinty rose with gloom upon his brow.

     "Brother Morris," said he, "you were always a croaker.  So long as the

members of this lodge stand together there is no power in the United States

that can touch them.  Sure, have we not tried it often enough in the law

courts?  I expect the big companies will find it easier to pay than to fight,

same as the little companies do.  And now, Brethren," McGinty took off his

black velvet cap and his stole as he spoke, "this lodge has finished its

business for the evening, save for one small matter which may be mentioned

when we are parting.  The time has now come for fraternal refreshment and for

harmony."

     Strange indeed is human nature.  Here were these men, to whom murder was

familiar, who again and again had struck down the father of the family, some

man against whom they had no personal feeling, without one thought of

compunction or of compassion for his weeping wife or helpless children, and

yet the tender or pathetic in music could move them to tears.  McMurdo had a

fine tenor voice, and if he had failed to gain the good will of the lodge

before, it could no longer have been withheld after he had thrilled them with

"I'm Sitting on the Stile, Mary," and "On the Banks of Allan Water."

     In his very first night the new recruit had made himself one of the most

popular of the brethren, marked already for advancement and high office.

There were other qualities needed, however, besides those of good fellowship,

to make a worthy Freeman, and of these he was given an example before the

evening was over.  The whisky bottle had passed round many times, and the men

were flushed and ripe for mischief when their Bodymaster rose once more to

address them.

     "Boys," said he, "there's one man in this town that wants trimming up,

and it's for you to see that he gets it.  I'm speaking of James Stanger of the

Herald.  You've seen how he's been opening his mouth against us again?"

     There was a murmur of assent, with many a muttered oath.  McGinty took a

slip of paper from his waistcoat pocket.

                               "LAW AND ORDER!

That's how he heads it.

                "REIGN OF TERROR IN THE COAL AND IRON DISTRICT

               "Twelve years have now elapsed since the first assassinations

          which proved the existence of a criminal organization in our midst.

          From that day these outrages have never ceased, until now they have

          reached a pitch which makes us the opprobrium of the civilized

          world.  Is it for such results as this that our great country

          welcomes to its bosom the alien who flies from the despotisms of

          Europe?  Is it that they shall themselves become tyrants over the

          very men who have given them shelter, and that a state of terrorism

          and lawlessness should be established under the very shadow of the

          sacred folds of the starry Flag of Freedom which would raise horror

          in our minds if we read of it as existing under the most effete

          monarchy of the East?  The men are known.  The organization is

          patent and public.  How long are we to endure it?  Can we forever

          live-- --

Sure, I've read enough of the slush!" cried the chairman, tossing the paper

down upon the table.  "That's what he says of us.  The question I'm asking you

is what shall we say to him?"

     "Kill him!" cried a dozen fierce voices.

     "I protest against that," said Brother Morris, the man of the good brow

and shaved face.  "I tell you, Brethren, that our hand is too heavy in this

valley, and that there will come a point where in self-defense every man will

unite to crush us out.  James Stanger is an old man.  He is respected in the

township and the district.  His paper stands for all that is solid in the

valley.  If that man is struck down, there will be a stir through this state

that will only end with our destruction."

     "And how would they bring about our destruction, Mr. Standback?" cried

McGinty.  "Is it by the police?  Sure, half of them are in our pay and half of

them afraid of us.  Or is it by the law courts and the judge?  Haven't we

tried that before now, and what ever came of it?"

     "There is a Judge Lynch that might try the case," said Brother Morris.

     A general shout of anger greeted the suggestion.

     "I have but to raise my finger," cried McGinty, "and I could put two

hundred men into this town that would clear it out from end to end."  Then

suddenly raising his voice and bending his huge black brows into a terrible

frown, "See here, Brother Morris, I have my eye on you, and have had for some

time!  You've no heart yourself, and you try to take the heart out of others.

It will be an ill day for you, Brother Morris, when your own name comes on our

agenda paper, and I'm thinking that it's just there that I ought to place it."

     Morris had turned deadly pale, and his knees seemed to give way under him

as he fell back into his chair.  He raised his glass in his trembling hand and

drank before he could answer.  "I apologize, Eminent Bodymaster, to you and to

every brother in this lodge if I have said more than I should.  I am a

faithful member--you all know that--and it is my fear lest evil come to the

lodge which makes me speak in anxious words.  But I have greater trust in your

judgment than in my own, Eminent Bodymaster, and I promise you that I will not

offend again."

     The Bodymaster's scowl relaxed as he listened to the humble words.  "Very

good, Brother Morris.  It's myself that would be sorry if it were needful to

give you a lesson.  But so long as I am in this chair we shall be a united

lodge in word and in deed.  And now, boys," he continued, looking round at the

company, "I'll say this much, that if Stanger got his full deserts there would

be more trouble than we need ask for.  These editors hang together, and every

journal in the state would be crying out for police and troops.  But I guess

you can give him a pretty severe warning.  Will you fix it, Brother Baldwin?"

     "Sure!" said the young man eagerly.

     "How many will you take?"

     "Half a dozen, and two to guard the door.  You'll come, Gower, and you,

Mansel, and you, Scanlan, and the two Willabys."

     "I promised the new brother he should go," said the chairman.

     Ted Baldwin looked at McMurdo with eyes which showed that he had not

forgotten nor forgiven.  "Well, he can come if he wants," he said in a surly

voice.  "That's enough.  The sooner we get to work the better."

     The company broke up with shouts and yells and snatches of drunken song.

The bar was still crowded with revellers, and many of the brethren remained

there.  The little band who had been told off for duty passed out into the

street, proceeding in twos and threes along the sidewalk so as not to provoke

attention.  It was a bitterly cold night, with a half-moon shining brilliantly

in a frosty, star-spangled sky.  The men stopped and gathered in a yard which

faced a high building.  The words "Vermissa Herald" were printed in gold

lettering between the brightly lit windows.  From within came the clanking of

the printing press.

     "Here, you," said Baldwin to McMurdo, "you can stand below at the door

and see that the road is kept open for us.  Arthur Willaby can stay with you.

You others come with me.  Have no fears, boys; for we have a dozen witnesses

that we are in the Union Bar at this very moment."

     It was nearly midnight, and the street was deserted save for one or two

revellers upon their way home.  The party crossed the road, and, pushing open

the door of the newspaper office, Baldwin and his men rushed in and up the

stair which faced them.  McMurdo and another remained below.  From the room

above came a shout, a cry for help, and then the sound of trampling feet and

of falling chairs.  An instant later a gray-haired man rushed out on the

landing.

     He was seized before he could get farther, and his spectacles came

tinkling down to McMurdo's feet.  There was a thud and a groan.  He was on his

face, and half a dozen sticks were clattering together as they fell upon him.

He writhed, and his long, thin limbs quivered under the blows.  The others

ceased at last; but Baldwin, his cruel face set in an infernal smile, was

hacking at the man's head, which he vainly endeavoured to defend with his

arms.  His white hair was dabbled with patches of blood.  Baldwin was still

stooping over his victim, putting in a short, vicious blow whenever he could

see a part exposed, when McMurdo dashed up the stair and pushed him back.

     "You'll kill the man," said he.  "Drop it!"

     Baldwin looked at him in amazement.  "Curse you!" he cried.  "Who are you

to interfere--you that are new to the lodge?  Stand back!"  He raised his

stick; but McMurdo had whipped his pistol out of his hip pocket.

     "Stand back yourself!" he cried.  "I'll blow your face in if you lay a

hand on me.  As to the lodge, wasn't it the order of the Bodymaster that the

man was not to be killed--and what are you doing but killing him?"

     "It's truth he says," remarked one of the men.

     "By Gar! you'd best hurry yourselves!" cried the man below.  "The windows

are all lighting up, and you'll have the whole town here inside of five

minutes."

     There was indeed the sound of shouting in the street, and a little group

of compositors and pressmen was forming in the hall below and nerving itself

to action.  Leaving the limp and motionless body of the editor at the head of

the stair, the criminals rushed down and made their way swiftly along the

street.  Having reached the Union House, some of them mixed with the crowd in

McGinty's saloon, whispering across the bar to the Boss that the job had been

well carried through.  Others, and among them McMurdo, broke away into side

streets, and so by devious paths to their own homes.

$Unique_ID{SLH00088}

$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Scowrers; The Valley of Fear}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

$Subject{}

$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

$Log{Plate A*0007801.scf

Plate B*0007802.scf}

                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 2

                                 THE SCOWRERS

                                  Chapter 4

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

WHEN McMURDO awoke next morning he had good reason to remember his initiation

into the lodge.  His head ached with the effect of the drink, and his arm,

where he had been branded, was hot and swollen.  Having his own peculiar

source of income, he was irregular in his attendance at his work; so he had a

late breakfast, and remained at home for the morning writing a long letter to

a friend.  Afterwards he read the Daily Herald.  In a special column put in at

the last moment he read:

                      OUTRAGE AT THE HERALD OFFICE--EDITOR

                               SERIOUSLY INJURED.

It was a short account of the facts with which he was himself more familiar

than the writer could have been.  It ended with the statement:

               The matter is now in the hands of the police; but it can hardly

          be hoped that their exertions will be attended by any better results

          than in the past.  Some of the men were recognized, and there is

          hope that a conviction may be obtained.  The source of the outrage

          was, it need hardly be said, that infamous society which has held

          this community in bondage for so long a period, and against which

          the Herald has taken so uncompromising a stand.  Mr. Stanger's many

          friends will rejoice to hear that, though he has been cruelly and

          brutally beaten, and though he has sustained severe injuries about

          the head, there is no immediate danger to his life.

     Below it stated that a guard of police, armed with Winchester rifles, had

been requisitioned for the defense of the office.

     McMurdo had laid down the paper, and was lighting his pipe with a hand

which was shaky from the excesses of the previous evening, when there was a

knock outside, and his landlady brought to him a note which had just been

handed in by a lad.  It was unsigned, and ran thus:

               I should wish to speak to you; but would rather not do so in

          your house.  You will find me beside the flagstaff upon Miller Hill.

          If you will come there now, I have something which it is important

          for you to hear and for me to say.

     McMurdo read the note twice with the utmost surprise; for he could not

imagine what it meant or who was the author of it.  Had it been in a feminine

hand, he might have imagined that it was the beginning of one of those

adventures which had been familiar enough in his past life.  But it was the

writing of a man, and of a well educated one, too.  Finally, after some

hesitation, he determined to see the matter through.

     Miller Hill is an ill-kept public park in the very centre of the town.

In summer it is a favourite resort of the people; but in winter it is desolate

enough.  From the top of it one has a view not only of the whole straggling,

grimy town, but of the winding valley beneath, with its scattered mines and

factories blackening the snow on each side of it, and of the wooded and

white-capped ranges flanking it.

     McMurdo strolled up the winding path hedged in with evergreens until he

reached the deserted restaurant which forms the centre of summer gaiety.

Beside it was a bare flagstaff, and underneath it a man, his hat drawn down

and the collar of his overcoat turned up.  When he turned his face McMurdo saw

that it was Brother Morris, he who had incurred the anger of the Bodymaster

the night before.  The lodge sign was given and exchanged as they met.

     "I wanted to have a word with you, Mr. McMurdo," said the older man,

speaking with a hesitation which showed that he was on delicate ground.  "It

was kind of you to come."

     "Why did you not put your name to the note?"

     "One has to be cautious, mister.  One never knows in times like these how

a thing may come back to one.  One never knows either who to trust or who not

to trust."

     "Surely one may trust brothers of the lodge."

     "No, no, not always," cried Morris with vehemence.  "Whatever we say,

even what we think, seems to go back to that man McGinty."

     "Look here!" said McMurdo sternly.  "It was only last night, as you know

well, that I swore good faith to our Bodymaster.  Would you be asking me to

break my oath?"

     "If that is the view you take," said Morris sadly, "I can only say that I

am sorry I gave you the trouble to come and meet me.  Things have come to a

bad pass when two free citizens cannot speak their thoughts to each other."

     McMurdo, who had been watching his companion very narrowly, relaxed

somewhat in his bearing.  "Sure I spoke for myself only," said he.  "I am a

newcomer, as you know, and I am strange to it all.  It is not for me to open

my mouth, Mr. Morris, and if you think well to say anything to me I am here to

hear it."

     "And to take it back to Boss McGinty!" said Morris bitterly.

     "Indeed, then, you do me injustice there," cried McMurdo.  "For myself I

am loyal to the lodge, and so I tell you straight; but I would be a poor

creature if I were to repeat to any other what you might say to me in

confidence.  It will go no further than me; though I warn you that you may get

neither help nor sympathy."

     "I have given up looking for either the one or the other," said Morris.

"I may be putting my very life in your hands by what I say; but, bad as you

are-- and it seemed to me last night that you were shaping to be as bad as the

worst --still you are new to it, and your conscience cannot yet be as hardened

as theirs.  That was why I thought to speak with you."

     "Well, what have you to say?"

     "If you give me away, may a curse be on you!"

     "Sure, I said I would not."

     "I would ask you, then, when you joined the Freeman's society in Chicago

and swore vows of charity and fidelity, did ever it cross your mind that you

might find it would lead you to crime?"

     "If you call it crime," McMurdo answered.

     "Call it crime!" cried Morris, his voice vibrating with passion.  "You

have seen little of it if you can call it anything else.  Was it crime last

night when a man old enough to be your father was beaten till the blood

dripped from his white hairs?  Was that crime--or what else would you call

it?"

     "There are some would say it was war," said McMurdo, "a war of two

classes with all in, so that each struck as best it could."

     "Well, did you think of such a thing when you joined the Freeman's

society at Chicago?"

     "No, I'm bound to say I did not."

     "Nor did I when I joined it at Philadelphia.  It was just a benefit club

and a meeting place for one's fellows.  Then I heard of this place--curse the

hour that the name first fell upon my ears!--and I came to better myself!  My

God! to better myself!  My wife and three children came with me.  I started a

drygoods store on Market Square, and I prospered well.  The word had gone

round that I was a Freeman, and I was forced to join the local lodge, same as

you did last night.  I've the badge of shame on my forearm and something worse

branded on my heart.  I found that I was under the orders of a black villain

and caught in a meshwork of crime.  What could I do?  Every word I said to

make things better was taken as treason, same as it was last night.  I can't

get away; for all I have in the world is in my store.  If I leave the society,

I know well that it means murder to me, and God knows what to my wife and

children.  Oh, man, it is awful--awful!"  He put his hands to his face, and

his body shook with convulsive sobs.

     McMurdo shrugged his shoulders.  "You were too soft for the job," said

he.  "You are the wrong sort for such work."

     "I had a conscience and a religion; but they made me a criminal among

them.  I was chosen for a job.  If I backed down, I knew well what would come

to me.  Maybe I'm a coward.  Maybe it's the thought of my poor little woman

and the children that makes me one.  Anyhow I went.  I guess it will haunt me

forever.

     "It was a lonely house, twenty miles from here, over the range yonder.  I

was told off for the door, same as you were last night.  They could not trust

me with the job.  The others went in.  When they came out their hands were

crimson to the wrists.  As we turned away a child was screaming out of the

house behind us.  It was a boy of five who had seen his father murdered.  I

nearly fainted with the horror of it, and yet I had to keep a bold and smiling

face; for well I knew that if I did not it would be out of my house that they

would come next with their bloody hands, and it would be my little Fred that

would be screaming for his father.

     "But I was a criminal then, part sharer in a murder, lost forever in this

world, and lost also in the next.  I am a good Catholic; but the priest would

have no word with me when he heard I was a Scowrer, and I am excommunicated

from my faith.  That's how it stands with me.  And I see you going down the

same road, and I ask you what the end is to be.  Are you ready to be a

cold-blooded murderer also, or can we do anything to stop it?"

     "What would you do?" asked McMurdo abruptly.  "You would not inform?"

     "God forbid!" cried Morris.  "Sure, the very thought would cost me my

life."

     "That's well," said McMurdo.  "I'm thinking that you are a weak man and

that you make too much of the matter."

     "Too much!  Wait till you have lived here longer.  Look down the valley!

See the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it!  I tell you that the

cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than that over the heads of the

people.  It is the Valley of Fear, the Valley of Death.  The terror is in the

hearts of the people from the dusk to the dawn.  Wait, young man, and you will

learn for yourself."

     "Well, I'll let you know what I think when I have seen more," said

McMurdo carelessly.  "What is very clear is that you are not the man for the

place, and that the sooner you sell out--if you only get a dime a dollar for

what the business is worth--the better it will be for you.  What you have said

is safe with me; but, by Gar! if I thought you were an informer-- --"

     "No, no!" cried Morris piteously.

     "Well, let it rest at that.  I'll bear what you have said in mind, and

maybe some day I'll come back to it.  I expect you meant kindly by speaking to

me like this.  Now I'll be getting home."

     "One word before you go," said Morris.  "We may have been seen together.

They may want to know what we have spoken about."

     "Ah! that's well thought of."

     "I offer you a clerkship in my store."

     "And I refuse it.  That's our business.  Well, so long, Brother Morris,

and may you find things go better with you in the future."

     That same afternoon, as McMurdo sat smoking, lost in thought, beside the

stove of his sitting-room, the door swung open and its framework was filled

with the huge figure of Boss McGinty.  He passed the sign, and then seating

himself opposite to the young man he looked at him steadily for some time, a

look which was as steadily returned.

     "I'm not much of a visitor, Brother McMurdo," he said at last.  "I guess

I am too busy over the folk that visit me.  But I thought I'd stretch a point

and drop down to see you in your own house."

     "I'm proud to see you here, Councillor," McMurdo answered heartily,

bringing his whisky bottle out of the cupboard.  "It's an honour that I had

not expected."

     "How's the arm?" asked the Boss.

     McMurdo made a wry face.  "Well, I'm not forgetting it," he said; "but

it's worth it."

     "Yes, it's worth it," the other answered, "to those that are loyal and go

through with it and are a help to the lodge.  What were you speaking to

Brother Morris about on Miller Hill this morning?"

     The question came so suddenly that it was well that he had his answer

prepared.  He burst into a hearty laugh.  "Morris didn't know I could earn a

living here at home.  He shan't know either; for he has got too much

conscience for the likes of me.  But he's a good-hearted old chap.  It was his

idea that I was at a loose end, and that he would do me a good turn by

offering me a clerkship in a drygoods store."

     "Oh, that was it?"

     "Yes, that was it."

     "And you refused it?"

     "Sure.  Couldn't I earn ten times as much in my own bedroom with four

hours' work?"

     "That's so.  But I wouldn't get about too much with Morris."

     "Why not?"

     "Well, I guess because I tell you not.  That's enough for most folk in

these parts."

     "It may be enough for most folk; but it ain't enough for me, Councillor,

" said McMurdo boldly.  "If you are a judge of men, you'll know that."

     The swarthy giant glared at him, and his hairy paw closed for an instant

round the glass as though he would hurl it at the head of his companion.  Then

he laughed in his loud, boisterous, insincere fashion.

     "You're a queer card, for sure," said he.  "Well, if you want reasons,

I'll give them.  Did Morris say nothing to you against the lodge?"

     "No."

     "Nor against me?"

     "No."

     "Well, that's because he daren't trust you.  But in his heart he is not a

loyal brother.  We know that well.  So we watch him and we wait for the time

to admonish him.  I'm thinking that the time is drawing near.  There's no room

for scabby sheep in our pen.  But if you keep company with a disloyal man, we

might think that you were disloyal, too.  See?"

     "There's no chance of my keeping company with him; for I dislike the

man," McMurdo answered.  "As to being disloyal, if it was any man but you he

would not use the word to me twice."

     "Well, that's enough," said McGinty, draining off his glass.  "I came

down to give you a word in season, and you've had it."

     "I'd like to know," said McMurdo, "how you ever came to learn that I had

spoken with Morris at all?"

     McGinty laughed.  "It's my business to know what goes on in this

township," said he.  "I guess you'd best reckon on my hearing all that passes.

Well, time's up, and I'll just say-- --"

     But his leavetaking was cut short in a very unexpected fashion.  With a

sudden crash the door flew open, and three frowning, intent faces glared in at

them from under the peaks of police caps.  McMurdo sprang to his feet and half

drew his revolver; but his arm stopped midway as he became conscious that two

Winchester rifles were levelled at his head.  A man in uniform advanced into

the room, a six-shooter in his hand.  It was Captain Marvin, once of Chicago,

and now of the Mine Constabulary.  He shook his head with a half-smile at

McMurdo.

     "I thought you'd be getting into trouble, Mr. Crooked McMurdo of

Chicago," said he.  "Can't keep out of it, can you?  Take your hat and come

along with us."

     "I guess you'll pay for this, Captain Marvin," said McGinty.  "Who are

you, I'd like to know, to break into a house in this fashion and molest

honest, law-abiding men?"

     "You're standing out in this deal, Councillor McGinty," said the police

captain.  "We are not out after you, but after this man McMurdo.  It is for

you to help, not to hinder us in our duty."

     "He is a friend of mine, and I'll answer for his conduct," said the Boss.

     "By all accounts, Mr. McGinty, you may have to answer for your own

conduct some of these days," the captain answered.  "This man McMurdo was a

crook before ever he came here, and he's a crook still.  Cover him, Patrolman,

while I disarm him."

     "There's my pistol," said McMurdo coolly.  "Maybe, Captain Marvin, if you

and I were alone and face to face you would not take me so easily."

     "Where's your warrant?" asked McGinty.  "By Gar! a man might as well live

in Russia as in Vermissa while folk like you are running the police.  It's a

capitalist outrage, and you'll hear more of it, I reckon."

     "You do what you think is your duty the best way you can, Councillor.

We'll look after ours."

     "What am I accused of?" asked McMurdo.

     "Of being concerned in the beating of old Editor Stanger at the Herald

office.  It wasn't your fault that it isn't a murder charge."

     "Well, if that's all you have against him," cried McGinty with a laugh,

"you can save yourself a deal of trouble by dropping it right now.  This man

was with me in my saloon playing poker up to midnight, and I can bring a dozen

to prove it."

     "That's your affair, and I guess you can settle it in court to-morrow.

Meanwhile, come on, McMurdo, and come quietly if you don't want a gun across

your head.  You stand wide, Mr. McGinty; for I warn you I will stand no

resistance when I am on duty!"

     So determined was the appearance of the captain that both McMurdo and his

boss were forced to accept the situation.  The latter managed to have a few

whispered words with the prisoner before they parted.

     "What about-- --" he jerked his thumb upward to signify the coining

plant.

     "All right," whispered McMurdo, who had devised a safe hiding place under

the floor.

     "I'll bid you good-bye," said the Boss, shaking hands.  "I'll see Reilly

the lawyer and take the defense upon myself.  Take my word for it that they

won't be able to hold you."

     "I wouldn't bet on that.  Guard the prisoner, you two, and shoot him if

he tries any games.  I'll search the house before I leave."

     He did so; but apparently found no trace of the concealed plant.  When he

had descended he and his men escorted McMurdo to headquarters.  Darkness had

fallen, and a keen blizzard was blowing so that the streets were nearly

deserted; but a few loiterers followed the group, and emboldened by

invisibility shouted imprecations at the prisoner.

     "Lynch the cursed Scowrer!" they cried.  "Lynch him!"  They laughed and

jeered as he was pushed into the police station.  After a short, formal

examination from the inspector in charge he was put into the common cell.

Here he found Baldwin and three other criminals of the night before, all

arrested that afternoon and waiting their trial next morning.

     But even within this inner fortress of the law the long arm of the

Freemen was able to extend.  Late at night there came a jailer with a straw

bundle for their bedding, out of which he extracted two bottles of whisky,

some glasses, and a pack of cards.  They spent a hilarious night, without an

anxious thought as to the ordeal of the morning.

     Nor had they cause, as the result was to show.  The magistrate could not

possibly, on the evidence, have held them for a higher court.  On the one hand

the compositors and pressmen were forced to admit that the light was

uncertain, that they were themselves much perturbed, and that it was difficult

for them to swear to the identity of the assailants; although they believed

that the accused were among them.  Cross examined by the clever attorney who

had been engaged by McGinty, they were even more nebulous in their evidence.

     The injured man had already deposed that he was so taken by surprise by

the suddenness of the attack that he could state nothing beyond the fact that

the first man who struck him wore a moustache.  He added that he knew them to

be Scowrers, since no one else in the community could possibly have any enmity

to him, and he had long been threatened on account of his outspoken

editorials.  On the other hand, it was clearly shown by the united and

unfaltering evidence of six citizens, including that high municipal official,

Councillor McGinty, that the men had been at a card party at the Union House

until an hour very much later than the commission of the outrage.

     Needless to say that they were discharged with something very near to an

apology from the bench for the inconvenience to which they had been put,

together with an implied censure of Captain Marvin and the police for their

officious zeal.

     The verdict was greeted with loud applause by a court in which McMurdo

saw many familiar faces.  Brothers of the lodge smiled and waved.  But there

were others who sat with compressed lips and brooding eyes as the men filed

out of the dock.  One of them, a little, dark-bearded, resolute fellow, put

the thoughts of himself and comrades into words as the ex-prisoners passed

him.

     "You damned murderers!" he said.  "We'll fix you yet!"

$Unique_ID{SLH00089}

$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Scowrers; The Darkest Hour}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

$Subject{}

$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

$Log{Plate A*0007801.scf

Plate B*0007802.scf}

                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 2

                                 THE SCOWRERS

                                  Chapter 5

                               THE DARKEST HOUR

IF ANYTHING had been needed to give an impetus to Jack McMurdo's popularity

among his fellows it would have been his arrest and acquittal.  That a man on

the very night of joining the lodge should have done something which brought

him before the magistrate was a new record in the annals of the society.

Already he had earned the reputation of a good boon companion, a cheery

reveller, and withal a man of high temper, who would not take an insult even

from the all powerful Boss himself.  But in addition to this he impressed his

comrades with the idea that among them all there was not one whose brain was

so ready to devise a bloodthirsty scheme, or whose hand would be more capable

of carrying it out.  "He'll be the boy for the clean job," said the oldsters

to one another, and waited their time until they could set him to his work.

     McGinty had instruments enough already; but he recognized that this was a

supremely able one.  He felt like a man holding a fierce bloodhound in leash.

There were curs to do the smaller work; but some day he would slip this

creature upon its prey.  A few members of the lodge, Ted Baldwin among them,

resented the rapid rise of the stranger and hated him for it; but they kept

clear of him, for he was as ready to fight as to laugh.

     But if he gained favour with his fellows, there was another quarter, one

which had become even more vital to him, in which he lost it.  Ettie Shafter's

father would have nothing more to do with him, nor would he allow him to enter

the house.  Ettie herself was too deeply in love to give him up altogether,

and yet her own good sense warned her of what would come from a marriage with

a man who was regarded as a criminal.

     One morning after a sleepless night she determined to see him, possibly

for the last time, and make one strong endeavour to draw him from those evil

influences which were sucking him down.  She went to his house, as he had

often begged her to do, and made her way into the room which he used as his

sitting-room.  He was seated at a table, with his back turned and a letter in

front of him.  A sudden spirit of girlish mischief came over her--she was

still only nineteen.  He had not heard her when she pushed open the door.  Now

she tiptoed forward and laid her hand lightly upon his bended shoulders.

     If she had expected to startle him, she certainly succeeded; but only in

turn to be startled herself.  With a tiger spring he turned on her, and his

right hand was feeling for her throat.  At the same instant with the other

hand he crumpled up the paper that lay before him.  For an instant he stood

glaring.  Then astonishment and joy took the place of the ferocity which had

convulsed his features--a ferocity which had sent her shrinking back in horror

as from something which had never before intruded into her gentle life.

     "It's you!" said he, mopping his brow.  "And to think that you should

come to me, heart of my heart, and I should find nothing better to do than to

want to strangle you!  Come then, darling," and he held out his arms, "let me

make it up to you."

     But she had not recovered from that sudden glimpse of guilty fear which

she had read in the man's face.  All her woman's instinct told her that it was

not the mere fright of a man who is startled.  Guilt--that was it--guilt and

fear!

     "What's come over you, Jack?" she cried.  "Why were you so scared of me?

Oh, Jack, if your conscience was at ease, you would not have looked at me like

that!"

     "Sure, I was thinking of other things, and when you came tripping so

lightly on those fairy feet of yours-- --"

     "No, no, it was more than that, Jack."  Then a sudden suspicion seized

her.  "Let me see that letter you were writing."

     "Ah, Ettie, I couldn't do that."

     Her suspicions became certainties.  "It's to another woman," she cried.

"I know it!  Why else should you hold it from me?  Was it to your wife that

you were writing?  How am I to know that you are not a married man--you, a

stranger, that nobody knows?"

     "I am not married, Ettie.  See now, I swear it!  You're the only one

woman on earth to me.  By the cross of Christ I swear it!"

     He was so white with passionate earnestness that she could not but

believe him.

     "Well, then," she cried, "why will you not show me the letter?"

     "I'll tell you, acushla," said he.  "I'm under oath not to show it, and

just as I wouldn't break my word to you so I would keep it to those who hold

my promise.  It's the business of the lodge, and even to you it's secret.  And

if I was scared when a hand fell on me, can't you understand it when it might

have been the hand of a detective?"

     She felt that he was telling the truth.  He gathered her into his arms

and kissed away her fears and doubts.

     "Sit here by me, then.  It's a queer throne for such a queen; but it's

the best your poor lover can find.  He'll do better for you some of these

days, I'm thinking.  Now your mind is easy once again, is it not?"

     "How can it ever be at ease, Jack, when I know that you are a criminal

among criminals, when I never know the day that I may hear you are in court

for murder?  'McMurdo the Scowrer,' that's what one of our boarders called you

yesterday.  It went through my heart like a knife."

     "Sure, hard words break no bones."

     "But they were true."

     "Well, dear, it's not so bad as you think.  We are but poor men that are

trying in our own way to get our rights."

     Ettie threw her arms round her lover's neck.  "Give it up, Jack!  For my

sake, for God's sake, give it up!  It was to ask you that I came here to-day.

Oh, Jack, see--I beg it of you on my bended knees!  Kneeling here before you I

implore you to give it up!"

     He raised her and soothed her with her head against his breast.

     "Sure, my darlin', you don't know what it is you are asking.  How could I

give it up when it would be to break my oath and to desert my comrades?  If

you could see how things stand with me you could never ask it of me.  Besides,

if I wanted to, how could I do it?  You don't suppose that the lodge would let

a man go free with all its secrets?"

     "I've thought of that, Jack.  I've planned it all.  Father has saved some

money.  He is weary of this place where the fear of these people darkens our

lives.  He is ready to go.  We would fly together to Philadelphia or New York,

where we would be safe from them."

     McMurdo laughed.  "The lodge has a long arm.  Do you think it could not

stretch from here to Philadelphia or New York?"

     "Well, then, to the West, or to England, or to Germany, where father came

from--anywhere to get away from this Valley of Fear!"

     McMurdo thought of old Brother Morris.  "Sure it is the second time I

have heard the valley so named," said he.  "The shadow does indeed seem to lie

heavy on some of you."

     "It darkens every moment of our lives.  Do you suppose that Ted Baldwin

has ever forgiven us?  If it were not that he fears you, what do you suppose

our chances would be?  If you saw the look in those dark, hungry eyes of his

when they fall on me!"

     "By Gar!  I'd teach him better manners if I caught him at it!  But see

here, little girl.  I can't leave here.  I can't--take that from me once and

for all.  But if you will leave me to find my own way, I will try to prepare a

way of getting honourably out of it."

     "There is no honour in such a matter."

     "Well, well, it's just how you look at it.  But if you'll give me six

months, I'll work it so that I can leave without being ashamed to look others

in the face."

     The girl laughed with joy.  "Six months!" she cried.  "Is it a promise?"

     "Well, it may be seven or eight.  But within a year at the furthest we

will leave the valley behind us."

     It was the most that Ettie could obtain, and yet it was something.  There

was this distant light to illuminate the gloom of the immediate future.  She

returned to her father's house more light-hearted than she had ever been since

Jack McMurdo had come into her life.

     It might be thought that as a member, all the doings of the society would

be told to him; but he was soon to discover that the organization was wider

and more complex than the simple lodge.  Even Boss McGinty was ignorant as to

many things; for there was an official named the County Delegate, living at

Hobson's Patch farther down the line, who had power over several different

lodges which he wielded in a sudden and arbitrary way.  Only once did McMurdo

see him, a sly, little gray-haired rat of a man, with a slinking gait and a

sidelong glance which was charged with malice.  Evans Pott was his name, and

even the great Boss of Vermissa felt towards him something of the repulsion

and fear which the huge Danton may have felt for the puny but dangerous

Robespierre.

     One day Scanlan, who was McMurdo's fellow boarder, received a note from

McGinty inclosing one from Evans Pott, which informed him that he was sending

over two good men, Lawler and Andrews, who had instructions to act in the

neighbourhood; though it was best for the cause that no particulars as to

their objects should be given.  Would the Bodymaster see to it that suitable

arrangements be made for their lodgings and comfort until the time for action

should arrive?  McGinty added that it was impossible for anyone to remain

secret at the Union House, and that, therefore, he would be obliged if McMurdo

and Scanlan would put the strangers up for a few days in their boarding house.

     The same evening the two men arrived, each carrying his gripsack.  Lawler

was an elderly man, shrewd, silent, and self-contained, clad in an old black

frock coat, which with his soft felt hat and ragged, grizzled beard gave him a

general resemblance to an itinerant preacher.  His companion Andrews was

little more than a boy, frank-faced and cheerful, with the breezy manner of

one who is out for a holiday and means to enjoy every minute of it.  Both men

were total abstainers, and behaved in all ways as exemplary members of the

society, with the one simple exception that they were assassins who had often

proved themselves to be most capable instruments for this association of

murder.  Lawler had already carried out fourteen commissions of the kind, and

Andrews three.

     They were, as McMurdo found, quite ready to converse about their deeds in

the past, which they recounted with the half-bashful pride of men who had done

good and unselfish service for the community.  They were reticent, however, as

to the immediate job in hand.

     "They chose us because neither I nor the boy here drink," Lawler

explained.  "They can count on us saying no more than we should.  You must not

take it amiss, but it is the orders of the County Delegate that we obey."

     "Sure, we are all in it together," said Scanlan, McMurdo's mate, as the

four sat together at supper.

     "That's true enough, and we'll talk till the cows come home of the

killing of Charlie Williams or of Simon Bird, or any other job in the past.

But till the work is done we say nothing."

     "There are half a dozen about here that I have a word to say to," said

McMurdo, with an oath.  "I suppose it isn't Jack Knox of Ironhill that you are

after.  I'd go some way to see him get his deserts."

     "No, it's not him yet."

     "Or Herman Strauss?"

     "No, nor him either."

     "Well, if you won't tell us we can't make you; but I'd be glad to know."

     Lawler smiled and shook his head.  He was not to be drawn.

     In spite of the reticence of their guests, Scanlan and McMurdo were quite

determined to be present at what they called "the fun."  When, therefore, at

an early hour one morning McMurdo heard them creeping down the stairs he

awakened Scanlan, and the two hurried on their clothes.  When they were

dressed they found that the others had stolen out, leaving the door open

behind them.  It was not yet dawn, and by the light of the lamps they could

see the two men some distance down the street.  They followed them warily,

treading noiselessly in the deep snow.

     The boarding house was near the edge of the town, and soon they were at

the crossroads which is beyond its boundary.  Here three men were waiting,

with whom Lawler and Andrews held a short, eager conversation.  Then they all

moved on together.  It was clearly some notable job which needed numbers.  At

this point there are several trails which lead to various mines.  The

strangers took that which led to the Crow Hill, a huge business which was in

strong hands which had been able, thanks to their energetic and fearless New

England manager, Josiah H. Dunn, to keep some order and discipline during the

long reign of terror.

     Day was breaking now, and a line of workmen were slowly making their way,

singly and in groups, along the blackened path.

     McMurdo and Scanlan strolled on with the others, keeping in sight of the

men whom they followed.  A thick mist lay over them, and from the heart of it

there came the sudden scream of a steam whistle.  It was the ten-minute signal

before the cages descended and the day's labour began.

     When they reached the open space round the mine shaft there were a

hundred miners waiting, stamping their feet and blowing on their fingers; for

it was bitterly cold.  The strangers stood in a little group under the shadow

of the engine house.  Scanlan and McMurdo climbed a heap of slag from which

the whole scene lay before them.  They saw the mine engineer, a great bearded

Scotchman named Menzies, come out of the engine house and blow his whistle for

the cages to be lowered.

     At the same instant a tall, loose-framed young man with a clean-shaved,

earnest face advanced eagerly towards the pit head.  As he came forward his

eyes fell upon the group, silent and motionless, under the engine house.  The

men had drawn down their hats and turned up their collars to screen their

faces.  For a moment the presentiment of Death laid its cold hand upon the

manager's heart.  At the next he had shaken it off and saw only his duty

towards intrusive strangers.

     "Who are you?" he asked as he advanced.  "What are you loitering there

for?"

     There was no answer; but the lad Andrews stepped forward and shot him in

the stomach.  The hundred waiting miners stood as motionless and helpless as

if they were paralyzed.  The manager clapped his two hands to the wound and

doubled himself up.  Then he staggered away; but another of the assassins

fired, and he went down sidewise, kicking and clawing among a heap of

clinkers.  Menzies, the Scotchman, gave a roar of rage at the sight and rushed

with an iron spanner at the murderers; but was met by two balls in the face

which dropped him dead at their very feet.

     There was a surge forward of some of the miners, and an inarticulate cry

of pity and of anger; but a couple of the strangers emptied their six-shooters

over the heads of the crowd, and they broke and scattered, some of them

rushing wildly back to their homes in Vermissa.

     When a few of the bravest had rallied, and there was a return to the

mine, the murderous gang had vanished in the mists of morning, without a

single witness being able to swear to the identity of these men who in front

of a hundred spectators had wrought this double crime.

     Scanlan and McMurdo made their way back; Scanlan somewhat subdued, for it

was the first murder job that he had seen with his own eyes, and it appeared

less funny than he had been led to believe.  The horrible screams of the dead

manager's wife pursued them as they hurried to the town.  McMurdo was absorbed

and silent; but he showed no sympathy for the weakening of his companion.

     "Sure, it is like a war," he repeated.  "What is it but a war between us

and them, and we hit back where we best can."

     There was high revel in the lodge room at the Union House that night, not

only over the killing of the manager and engineer of the Crow Hill mine, which

would bring this organization into line with the other blackmailed and

terror-stricken companies of the district, but also over a distant triumph

which had been wrought by the hands of the lodge itself.

     It would appear that when the County Delegate had sent over five good men

to strike a blow in Vermissa, he had demanded that in return three Vermissa

men should be secretly selected and sent across to kill William Hales of Stake

Royal, one of the best known and most popular mine owners in the Gilmerton

district, a man who was believed not to have an enemy in the world; for he was

in all ways a model employer.  He had insisted, however, upon efficiency in

the work, and had, therefore, paid off certain drunken and idle employees who

were members of the all-powerful society.  Coffin notices hung outside his

door had not weakened his resolution, and so in a free, civilized country he

found himself condemned to death.

     The execution had now been duly carried out.  Ted Baldwin, who sprawled

now in the seat of honour beside the Bodymaster, had been chief of the party.

His flushed face and glazed, bloodshot eyes told of sleeplessness and drink.

He and his two comrades had spent the night before among the mountains.  They

were unkempt and weather-stained.  But no heroes, returning from a forlorn

hope, could have had a warmer welcome from their comrades.

     The story was told and retold amid cries of delight and shouts of

laughter.  They had waited for their man as he drove home at nightfall, taking

their station at the top of a steep hill, where his horse must be at a walk.

He was so furred to keep out the cold that he could not lay his hand on his

pistol.  They had pulled him out and shot him again and again.  He had

screamed for mercy.  The screams were repeated for the amusement of the lodge.

     "Let's hear again how he squealed," they cried.

     None of them knew the man; but there is eternal drama in a killing, and

they had shown the Scowrers of Gilmerton that the Vermissa men were to be

relied upon.

     There had been one contretemps; for a man and his wife had driven up

while they were still emptying their revolvers into the silent body.  It had

been suggested that they should shoot them both; but they were harmless folk

who were not connected with the mines, so they were sternly bidden to drive on

and keep silent, lest a worse thing befall them.  And so the blood-mottled

figure had been left as a warning to all such hard-hearted employers, and the

three noble avengers had hurried off into the mountains where unbroken nature

comes down to the very edge of the furnaces and the slag heaps.  Here they

were, safe and sound, their work well done, and the plaudits of their

companions in their ears.

     It had been a great day for the Scowrers.  The shadow had fallen even

darker over the valley.  But as the wise general chooses the moment of victory

in which to redouble his efforts, so that his foes may have no time to steady

themselves after disaster, so Boss McGinty, looking out upon the scene of his

operations with his brooding and malicious eyes, had devised a new attack upon

those who opposed him.  That very night, as the half-drunken company broke up,

he touched McMurdo on the arm and led him aside into that inner room where

they had their first interview.

     "See here, my lad," said he, "I've got a job that's worthy of you at

last.  You'll have the doing of it in your own hands."

     "Proud I am to hear it," McMurdo answered.

     "You can take two men with you--Manders and Reilly.  They have been

warned for service.  We'll never be right in this district until Chester

Wilcox has been settled, and you'll have the thanks of every lodge in the coal

fields if you can down him."

     "I'll do my best, anyhow.  Who is he, and where shall I find him?"

     McGinty took his eternal half-chewed, half-smoked cigar from the corner

of his mouth, and proceeded to draw a rough diagram on a page torn from his

notebook.

     "He's the chief foreman of the Iron Dike Company.  He's a hard citizen,

an old colour sergeant of the war, all scars and grizzle.  We've had two tries

at him; but had no luck, and Jim Carnaway lost his life over it.  Now it's for

you to take it over.  That's the house--all alone at the Iron Dike crossroad,

same as you see here on the map--without another within earshot.  It's no good

by day.  He's armed and shoots quick and straight, with no questions asked.

But at night--well, there he is with his wife, three children, and a hired

help.  You can't pick or choose.  It's all or none.  If you could get a bag of

blasting powder at the front door with a slow match to it-- --"

     "What's the man done?"

     "Didn't I tell you he shot Jim Carnaway?"

     "Why did he shoot him?"

     "What in thunder has that to do with you?  Carnaway was about his house

at night, and he shot him.  That's enough for me and you.  You've got to

settle the thing right."

     "There's these two women and the children.  Do they go up too?"

     "They have to--else how can we get him?"

     "It seems hard on them; for they've done nothing."

     "What sort of fool's talk is this?  Do you back out?"

     "Easy, Councillor, easy!  What have I ever said or done that you should

think I would be after standing back from an order of the Bodymaster of my own

lodge?  If it's right or if it's wrong, it's for you to decide."

     "You'll do it, then?"

     "Of course I will do it."

     "When?"

     "Well, you had best give me a night or two that I may see the house and

make my plans.  Then-- --"

     "Very good," said McGinty, shaking him by the hand.  "I leave it with

you.  It will be a great day when you bring us the news.  It's just the last

stroke that will bring them all to their knees."

     McMurdo thought long and deeply over the commission which had been so

suddenly placed in his hands.  The isolated house in which Chester Wilcox

lived was about five miles off in an adjacent valley.  That very night he

started off all alone to prepare for the attempt.  It was daylight before he

returned from his reconnaissance.  Next day he interviewed his two

subordinates, Manders and Reilly, reckless youngsters who were as elated as if

it were a deer-hunt.

     Two nights later they met outside the town, all three armed, and one of

them carrying a sack stuffed with the powder which was used in the quarries.

It was two in the morning before they came to the lonely house.  The night was

a windy one, with broken clouds drifting swiftly across the face of a

three-quarter moon.  They had been warned to be on their guard against

bloodhounds; so they moved forward cautiously, with their pistols cocked in

their hands.  But there was no sound save the howling of the wind, and no

movement but the swaying branches above them.

     McMurdo listened at the door of the lonely house; but all was still

within.  Then he leaned the powder bag against it, ripped a hole in it with

his knife, and attached the fuse.  When it was well alight he and his two

companions took to their heels, and were some distance off, safe and snug in a

sheltering ditch, before the shattering roar of the explosion, with the low,

deep rumble of the collapsing building, told them that their work was done.

No cleaner job had ever been carried out in the bloodstained annals of the

society.

     But alas that work so well organized and boldly carried out should all

have gone for nothing!  Warned by the fate of the various victims, and knowing

that he was marked down for destruction, Chester Wilcox had moved himself and

his family only the day before to some safer and less known quarters, where a

guard of police should watch over them.  It was an empty house which had been

torn down by the gunpowder, and the grim old colour sergeant of the war was

still teaching discipline to the miners of Iron Dike.

     "Leave him to me," said McMurdo.  "He's my man, and I'll get him sure if

I have to wait a year for him."

     A vote of thanks and confidence was passed in full lodge, and so for the

time the matter ended.  When a few weeks later it was reported in the papers

that Wilcox had been shot at from an ambuscade, it was an open secret that

McMurdo was still at work upon his unfinished job.

     Such were the methods of the Society of Freemen, and such were the deeds

of the Scowrers by which they spread their rule of fear over the great and

rich district which was for so long a period haunted by their terrible

presence.  Why should these pages be stained by further crimes?  Have I not

said enough to show the men and their methods?

     These deeds are written in history, and there are records wherein one may

read the details of them.  There one may learn of the shooting of Policemen

Hunt and Evans because they had ventured to arrest two members of the

society--a double outrage planned at the Vermissa lodge and carried out in

cold blood upon two helpless and disarmed men.  There also one may read of the

shooting of Mrs. Larbey when she was nursing her husband, who had been beaten

almost to death by orders of Boss McGinty.  The killing of the elder Jenkins,

shortly followed by that of his brother, the mutilation of James Murdoch, the

blowing up of the Staphouse family, and the murder of the Stendals all

followed hard upon one another in the same terrible winter.

     Darkly the shadow lay upon the Valley of Fear.  The spring had come with

running brooks and blossoming trees.  There was hope for all Nature bound so

long in an iron grip; but nowhere was there any hope for the men and women who

lived under the yoke of the terror.  Never had the cloud above them been so

dark and hopeless as in the early summer of the year 1875.

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$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Scowrers; Danger}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

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                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 2

                                 THE SCOWRERS

                                  Chapter 6

                                    DANGER

IT WAS the height of the reign of terror.  McMurdo, who had already been

appointed Inner Deacon, with every prospect of some day succeeding McGinty as

Bodymaster, was now so necessary to the councils of his comrades that nothing

was done without his help and advice.  The more popular he became, however,

with the Freemen, the blacker were the scowls which greeted him as he passed

along the streets of Vermissa.  In spite of their terror the citizens were

taking heart to band themselves together against their oppressors.  Rumours

had reached the lodge of secret gatherings in the Herald office and of

distribution of firearms among the law-abiding people.  But McGinty and his

men were undisturbed by such reports.  They were numerous, resolute, and well

armed.  Their opponents were scattered and powerless.  It would all end, as it

had done in the past, in aimless talk and possibly in impotent arrests.  So

said McGinty, McMurdo, and all the bolder spirits.

     It was a Saturday evening in May.  Saturday was always the lodge night,

and McMurdo was leaving his house to attend it when Morris, the weaker brother

of the order, came to see him.  His brow was creased with care, and his kindly

face was drawn and haggard.

     "Can I speak with you freely, Mr. McMurdo?"

     "Sure."

     "I can't forget that I spoke my heart to you once, and that you kept it

to yourself, even though the Boss himself came to ask you about it."

     "What else could I do if you trusted me?  It wasn't that I agreed with

what you said."

     "I know that well.  But you are the one that I can speak to and be safe.

I've a secret here," he put his hand to his breast, "and it is just burning

the life out of me.  I wish it had come to any one of you but me.  If I tell

it, it will mean murder, for sure.  If I don't, it may bring the end of us

all.  God help me, but I am near out of my wits over it!"

     McMurdo looked at the man earnestly.  He was trembling in every limb.  He

poured some whisky into a glass and handed it to him.  "That's the physic for

the likes of you," said he.  "Now let me hear of it."

     Morris drank, and his white face took a tinge of colour.  "I can tell it

to you all in one sentence," said he.  "There's a detective on our trail."

     McMurdo stared at him in astonishment.  "Why, man, you're crazy," he

said.  "Isn't the place full of police and detectives, and what harm did they

ever do us?"

     "No, no, it's no man of the district.  As you say, we know them, and it

is little that they can do.  But you've heard of Pinkerton's?"

     "I've read of some folk of that name."

     "Well, you can take it from me you've no show when they are on your

trail.  It's not a take-it-or-miss-it government concern.  It's a dead earnest

business proposition that's out for results and keeps out till by hook or

crook it gets them.  If a Pinkerton man is deep in this business, we are all

destroyed."

     "We must kill him."

     "Ah, it's the first thought that came to you!  So it will be up at the

lodge.  Didn't I say to you that it would end in murder?"

     "Sure, what is murder?  Isn't it common enough in these parts?"

     "It is, indeed; but it's not for me to point out the man that is to be

murdered.  I'd never rest easy again.  And yet it's our own necks that may be

at stake.  In God's name what shall I do?"  He rocked to and fro in his agony

of indecision.

     But his words had moved McMurdo deeply.  It was easy to see that he

shared the other's opinion as to the danger, and the need for meeting it.  He

gripped Morris's shoulder and shook him in his earnestness.

     "See here, man," he cried, and he almost screeched the words in his

excitement, "you won't gain anything by sitting keening like an old wife at a

wake.  Let's have the facts.  Who is the fellow?  Where is he?  How did you

hear of him?  Why did you come to me?"

     "I came to you; for you are the one man that would advise me.  I told you

that I had a store in the East before I came here.  I left good friends behind

me, and one of them is in the telegraph service.  Here's a letter that I had

from him yesterday.  It's this part from the top of the page.  You can read it

yourself."

     This was what McMurdo read:

               How are the Scowrers getting on in your parts?  We read plenty

          of them in the papers.  Between you and me I expect to hear news

          from you before long.  Five big corporations and the two railroads

          have taken the thing up in dead earnest.  They mean it, and you can

          bet they'll get there!  They are right deep down into it.  Pinkerton

          has taken hold under their orders, and his best man, Birdy Edwards,

          is operating.  The thing has got to be stopped right now.

     "Now read the postscript."

               Of course, what I give you is what I learned in business; so it

          goes no further.  It's a queer cipher that you handle by the yard

          every day and can get no meaning from.

     McMurdo sat in silence for some time, with the letter in his listless

hands.  The mist had lifted for a moment, and there was the abyss before him.

     "Does anyone else know of this?" he asked.

     "I have told no one else."

     "But this man--your friend--has he any other person that he would be

likely to write to?"

     "Well, I dare say he knows one or two more."

     "Of the lodge?"

     "It's likely enough."

     "I was asking because it is likely that he may have given some

description of this fellow Birdy Edwards--then we could get on his trail."

     "Well, it's possible.  But I should not think he knew him.  He is just

telling me the news that came to him by way of business.  How would he know

this Pinkerton man?"

     McMurdo gave a violent start.

     "By Gar!" he cried, "I've got him.  What a fool I was not to know it.

Lord! but we're in luck!  We will fix him before he can do any harm.  See

here, Morris, will you leave this thing in my hands?"

     "Sure, if you will only take it off mine."

     "I'll do that.  You can stand right back and let me run it.  Even your

name need not be mentioned.  I'll take it all on myself, as if it were to me

that this letter has come.  Will that content you?"

     "It's just what I would ask."

     "Then leave it at that and keep your head shut.  Now I'll get down to the

lodge, and we'll soon make old man Pinkerton sorry for himself."

     "You wouldn't kill this man?"

     "The less you know, Friend Morris, the easier your conscience will be,

and the better you will sleep.  Ask no questions, and let these things settle

themselves.  I have hold of it now."

     Morris shook his head sadly as he left.  "I feel that his blood is on my

hands," he groaned.

     "Self-protection is no murder, anyhow," said McMurdo, smiling grimly.

"It's him or us.  I guess this man would destroy us all if we left him long in

the valley.  Why, Brother Morris, we'll have to elect you Bodymaster yet; for

you've surely saved the lodge."

     And yet it was clear from his actions that he thought more seriously of

this new intrusion than his words would show.  It may have been his guilty

conscience, it may have been the reputation of the Pinkerton organization, it

may have been the knowledge that great, rich corporations had set themselves

the task of clearing out the Scowrers; but, whatever his reason, his actions

were those of a man who is preparing for the worst.  Every paper which would

incriminate him was destroyed before he left the house.  After that he gave a

long sigh of satisfaction; for it seemed to him that he was safe.  And yet the

danger must still have pressed somewhat upon him; for on his way to the lodge

he stopped at old man Shafter's.  The house was forbidden him; but when he

tapped at the window Ettie came out to him.  The dancing Irish deviltry had

gone from her lover's eyes.  She read his danger in his earnest face.

     "Something has happened!" she cried.  "Oh, Jack, you are in danger!"

     "Sure, it is not very bad, my sweetheart.  And yet it may be wise that we

make a move before it is worse."

     "Make a move?"

     "I promised you once that I would go some day.  I think the time is

coming.  I had news to-night, bad news, and I see trouble coming."

     "The police?"

     "Well, a Pinkerton.  But, sure, you wouldn't know what that is, acushla,

nor what it may mean to the likes of me.  I'm too deep in this thing, and I

may have to get out of it quick.  You said you would come with me if I went."

     "Oh, Jack, it would be the saving of you!"

     "I'm an honest man in some things, Ettie.  I wouldn't hurt a hair of your

bonny head for all that the world can give, nor ever pull you down one inch

from the golden throne above the clouds where I always see you.  Would you

trust me?"

     She put her hand in his without a word.  "Well, then, listen to what I

say, and do as I order you; for indeed it's the only way for us.  Things are

going to happen in this valley.  I feel it in my bones.  There may be many of

us that will have to look out for ourselves.  I'm one, anyhow.  If I go, by

day or night, it's you that must come with me!"

     "I'd come after you, Jack."

     "No, no, you shall come with me.  If this valley is closed to me and I

can never come back, how can I leave you behind, and me perhaps in hiding from

the police with never a chance of a message?  It's with me you must come.  I

know a good woman in the place I come from, and it's there I'd leave you till

we can get married.  Will you come?"

     "Yes, Jack, I will come."

     "God bless you for your trust in me!  It's a fiend out of hell that I

should be if I abused it.  Now, mark you, Ettie, it will be just a word to

you, and when it reaches you, you will drop everything and come right down to

the waiting room at the depot and stay there till I come for you."

     "Day or night, I'll come at the word, Jack."

     Somewhat eased in mind, now that his own preparations for escape had been

begun, McMurdo went on to the lodge.  It had already assembled, and only by

complicated signs and countersigns could he pass through the outer guard and

inner guard who close-tiled it.  A buzz of pleasure and welcome greeted him as

he entered.  The long room was crowded, and through the haze of tobacco smoke

he saw the tangled black mane of the Bodymaster, the cruel, unfriendly

features of Baldwin, the vulture face of Harraway, the secretary, and a dozen

more who were among the leaders of the lodge.  He rejoiced that they should

all be there to take counsel over his news.

     "Indeed, it's glad we are to see you, Brother!" cried the chairman.

"There's business here that wants a Solomon in judgment to set it right."

     "It's Lander and Egan," explained his neighbour as he took his seat.

"They both claim the head money given by the lodge for the shooting of old man

Crabbe over at Stylestown, and who's to say which fired the bullet?"

     McMurdo rose in his place and raised his hand.  The expression of his

face froze the attention of the audience.  There was a dead hush of

expectation.

     "Eminent Bodymaster," he said, in a solemn voice, "I claim urgency!"

     "Brother McMurdo claims urgency," said McGinty.  "It's a claim that by

the rules of this lodge takes precedence.  Now, Brother, we attend you."

     McMurdo took the letter from his pocket.

     "Eminent Bodymaster and Brethren," he said, "I am the bearer of ill news

this day; but it is better that it should be known and discussed, than that a

blow should fall upon us without warning which would destroy us all.  I have

information that the most powerful and richest organizations in this state

have bound themselves together for our destruction, and that at this very

moment there is a Pinkerton detective, one Birdy Edwards, at work in the

valley collecting the evidence which may put a rope round the necks of many of

us, and send every man in this room into a felon's cell.  That is the

situation for the discussion of which I have made a claim of urgency."

     There was a dead silence in the room.  It was broken by the chairman.

     "What is your evidence for this, Brother McMurdo?" he asked.

     "It is in this letter which has come into my hands," said McMurdo.  He

read the passage aloud.  "It is a matter of honour with me that I can give no

further particulars about the letter, nor put it into your hands; but I assure

you that there is nothing else in it which can affect the interests of the

lodge.  I put the case before you as it has reached me."

     "Let me say, Mr. Chairman," said one of the older brethren, "that I have

heard of Birdy Edwards, and that he has the name of being the best man in the

Pinkerton service."

     "Does anyone know him by sight?" asked McGinty.

     "Yes," said McMurdo, "I do."

     There was a murmur of astonishment through the hall.

     "I believe we hold him in the hollow of our hands," he continued with an

exulting smile upon his face.  "If we act quickly and wisely, we can cut this

thing short.  If I have your confidence and your help, it is little that we

have to fear."

     "What have we to fear, anyhow?  What can he know of our affairs?"

     "You might say so if all were as stanch as you, Councillor.  But this man

has all the millions of the capitalists at his back.  Do you think there is no

weaker brother among all our lodges that could not be bought?  He will get at

our secrets--maybe has got them already.  There's only one sure cure."

     "That he never leaves the valley," said Baldwin.

     McMurdo nodded.  "Good for you, Brother Baldwin," he said.  "You and I

have had our differences, but you have said the true word to-night."

     "Where is he, then?  Where shall we know him?"

     "Eminent Bodymaster," said McMurdo, earnestly, "I would put it to you

that this is too vital a thing for us to discuss in open lodge.  God forbid

that I should throw a doubt on anyone here; but if so much as a word of gossip

got to the ears of this man, there would be an end of any chance of our

getting him.  I would ask the lodge to choose a trusty committee, Mr.

Chairman--yourself, if I might suggest it, and Brother Baldwin here, and five

more.  Then I can talk freely of what I know and of what I advise should be

done."

     The proposition was at once adopted, and the committee chosen.  Besides

the chairman and Baldwin there were the vulture-faced secretary, Harraway,

Tiger Cormac, the brutal young assassin, Carter, the treasurer, and the

brothers Willaby, fearless and desperate men who would stick at nothing.

     The usual revelry of the lodge was short and subdued:  for there was a

cloud upon the men's spirits, and many there for the first time began to see

the cloud of avenging Law drifting up in that serene sky under which they had

dwelt so long.  The horrors they had dealt out to others had been so much a

part of their settled lives that the thought of retribution had become a

remote one, and so seemed the more startling now that it came so closely upon

them.  They broke up early and left their leaders to their council.

     "Now, McMurdo!" said McGinty when they were alone.  The seven men sat

frozen in their seats.

     "I said just now that I knew Birdy Edwards," McMurdo explained.  "I need

not tell you that he is not here under that name.  He's a brave man, but not a

crazy one.  He passes under the name of Steve Wilson, and he is lodging at

Hobson's Patch."

     "How do you know this?"

     "Because I fell into talk with him.  I thought little of it at the time,

nor would have given it a second thought but for this letter; but now I'm sure

it's the man.  I met him on the cars when I went down the line on Wednesday--a

hard case if ever there was one.  He said he was a reporter.  I believed it

for the moment.  Wanted to know all he could about the Scowrers and what he

called 'the outrages' for a New York paper.  Asked me every kind of question

so as to get something.  You bet I was giving nothing away.  'I'd pay for it

and pay well,' said he, 'if I could get some stuff that would suit my editor.'

I said what I thought would please him best, and he handed me a twenty-dollar

bill for my information.  'There's ten times that for you,' said he, 'if you

can find me all that I want.'"

     "What did you tell him, then?"

     "Any stuff I could make up."

     "How do you know he wasn't a newspaper man?"

     "I'll tell you.  He got out at Hobson's Patch, and so did I.  I chanced

into the telegraph bureau, and he was leaving it.

     "'See here,' said the operator after he'd gone out, 'I guess we should

charge double rates for this.'--'I guess you should,' said I.  He had filled

the form with stuff that might have been Chinese, for all we could make of it.

'He fires a sheet of this off every day,' said the clerk.  'Yes,' said I;

'it's special news for his paper, and he's scared that the others should tap

it.' That was what the operator thought and what I thought at the time; but I

think differently now."

     "By Gar!  I believe you are right," said McGinty.  "But what do you allow

that we should do about it?"

     "Why not go right down now and fix him?" someone suggested.

     "Ay, the sooner the better."

     "I'd start this next minute if I knew where we could find him," said

McMurdo.  "He's in Hobson's Patch; but I don't know the house.  I've got a

plan, though, if you'll only take my advice."

     "Well, what is it?"

     "I'll go to the Patch to-morrow morning.  I'll find him through the

operator.  He can locate him, I guess.  Well, then I'll tell him that I'm a

Freeman myself.  I'll offer him all the secrets of the lodge for a price.  You

bet he'll tumble to it.  I'll tell him the papers are at my house, and that

it's as much as my life would be worth to let him come while folk were about.

He'll see that that's horse sense.  Let him come at ten o'clock at night, and

he shall see everything.  That will fetch him sure."

     "Well?"

     "You can plan the rest for yourselves.  Widow MacNamara's is a lonely

house.  She's as true as steel and as deaf as a post.  There's only Scanlan

and me in the house.  If I get his promise--and I'll let you know if I do--I'd

have the whole seven of you come to me by nine o'clock.  We'll get him in.  If

ever he gets out alive--well, he can talk of Birdy Edwards' luck for the rest

of his days!"

     "There's going to be a vacancy at Pinkerton's or I'm mistaken.  Leave it

at that, McMurdo.  At nine to-morrow we'll be with you.  You once get the door

shut behind him, and you can leave the rest with us."

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$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Scowrers; The Trapping of Birdy Edwards}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

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                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 2

                                 THE SCOWRERS

                                  Chapter 7

                         THE TRAPPING OF BIRDY EDWARDS

AS McMURDO had said, the house in which he lived was a lonely one and very

well suited for such a crime as they had planned.  It was on the extreme

fringe of the town and stood well back from the road.  In any other case the

conspirators would have simply called out their man, as they had many a time

before, and emptied their pistols into his body; but in this instance it was

very necessary to find out how much he knew, how he knew it, and what had been

passed on to his employers.

     It was possible that they were already too late and that the work had

been done.  If that was indeed so, they could at least have their revenge upon

the man who had done it.  But they were hopeful that nothing of great

importance had yet come to the detective's knowledge, as otherwise, they

argued, he would not have troubled to write down and forward such trivial

information as McMurdo claimed to have given him.  However, all this they

would learn from his own lips.  Once in their power, they would find a way to

make him speak.  It was not the first time that they had handled an unwilling

witness.

     McMurdo went to Hobson's Patch as agreed.  The police seemed to take

particular interest in him that morning, and Captain Marvin--he who had

claimed the old acquaintance with him at Chicago--actually addressed him as he

waited at the station.  McMurdo turned away and refused to speak with him.  He

was back from his mission in the afternoon, and saw McGinty at the Union

House.

     "He is coming," he said.

     "Good!" said McGinty.  The giant was in his shirt sleeves, with chains

and seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a diamond twinkling through

the fringe of his bristling beard.  Drink and politics had made the Boss a

very rich as well as powerful man.  The more terrible, therefore, seemed that

glimpse of the prison or the gallows which had risen before him the night

before.

     "Do you reckon he knows much?" he asked anxiously.

     McMurdo shook his head gloomily.  "He's been here some time--six weeks at

the least.  I guess he didn't come into these parts to look at the prospect.

If he has been working among us all that time with the railroad money at his

back, I should expect that he has got results, and that he has passed them

on."

     "There's not a weak man in the lodge," cried McGinty.  "True as steel,

every man of them.  And yet, by the Lord! there is that skunk Morris.  What

about him?  If any man gives us away, it would be he.  I've a mind to send a

couple of the boys round before evening to give him a beating up and see what

they can get from him."

     "Well, there would be no harm in that," McMurdo answered.  "I won't deny

that I have a liking for Morris and would be sorry to see him come to harm.

He has spoken to me once or twice over lodge matters, and though he may not

see them the same as you or I, he never seemed the sort that squeals.  But

still it is not for me to stand between him and you."

     "I'll fix the old devil!" said McGinty with an oath.  "I've had my eye on

him this year past."

     "Well, you know best about that," McMurdo answered.  "But whatever you do

must be to-morrow; for we must lie low until the Pinkerton affair is settled

up.  We can't afford to set the police buzzing, to-day of all days."

     "True for you," said McGinty.  "And we'll learn from Birdy Edwards

himself where he got his news if we have to cut his heart out first.  Did he

seem to scent a trap?"

     McMurdo laughed.  "I guess I took him on his weak point," he said.  "If

he could get on a good trail of the Scowrers, he's ready to follow it into

hell.  I took his money," McMurdo grinned as he produced a wad of dollar

notes, "and as much more when he has seen all my papers."

     "What papers?"

     "Well, there are no papers.  But I filled him up about constitutions and

books of rules and forms of membership.  He expects to get right down to the

end of everything before he leaves."

     "Faith, he's right there," said McGinty grimly.  "Didn't he ask you why

you didn't bring him the papers?"

     "As if I would carry such things, and me a suspected man, and Captain

Marvin after speaking to me this very day at the depot!"

     "Ay, I heard of that," said McGinty.  "I guess the heavy end of this

business is coming on to you.  We could put him down an old shaft when we've

done with him; but however we work it we can't get past the man living at

Hobson's Patch and you being there to-day."

     McMurdo shrugged his shoulders.  "If we handle it right, they can never

prove the killing," said he.  "No one can see him come to the house after

dark, and I'll lay to it that no one will see him go.  Now see here,

Councillor, I'll show you my plan and I'll ask you to fit the others into it.

You will all come in good time.  Very well.  He comes at ten.  He is to tap

three times, and me to open the door for him.  Then I'll get behind him and

shut it.  He's our man then."

     "That's all easy and plain."

     "Yes; but the next step wants considering.  He's a hard proposition.

He's heavily armed.  I've fooled him proper, and yet he is likely to be on his

guard.  Suppose I show him right into a room with seven men in it where he

expected to find me alone.  There is going to be shooting, and somebody is

going to be hurt."

     "That's so."

     "And the noise is going to bring every damned copper in the township on

top of it."

     "I guess you are right."

     "This is how I should work it.  You will all be in the big room--same as

you saw when you had a chat with me.  I'll open the door for him, show him

into the parlour beside the door, and leave him there while I get the papers.

That will give me the chance of telling you how things are shaping.  Then I

will go back to him with some faked papers.  As he is reading them I will jump

for him and get my grip on his pistol arm.  You'll hear me call and in you

will rush.  The quicker the better; for he is as strong a man as I, and I may

have more than I can manage.  But I allow that I can hold him till you come."

     "It's a good plan," said McGinty.  "The lodge will owe you a debt for

this.  I guess when I move out of the chair I can put a name to the man that's

coming after me."

     "Sure, Councillor, I am little more than a recruit," said McMurdo; but

his face showed what he thought of the great man's compliment.

     When he had returned home he made his own preparations for the grim

evening in front of him.  First he cleaned, oiled, and loaded his Smith &

Wesson revolver.  Then he surveyed the room in which the detective was to be

trapped.  It was a large apartment, with a long deal table in the centre, and

the big stove at one side.  At each of the other sides were windows.  There

were no shutters on these:  only light curtains which drew across.  McMurdo

examined these attentively.  No doubt it must have struck him that the

apartment was very exposed for so secret a meeting.  Yet its distance from the

road made it of less consequence.  Finally he discussed the matter with his

fellow lodger.  Scanlan, though a Scowrer, was an inoffensive little man who

was too weak to stand against the opinion of his comrades, but was secretly

horrified by the deeds of blood at which he had sometimes been forced to

assist.  McMurdo told him shortly what was intended.

     "And if I were you, Mike Scanlan, I would take a night off and keep clear

of it.  There will be bloody work here before morning."

     "Well, indeed then, Mac," Scanlan answered.  "It's not the will but the

nerve that is wanting in me.  When I saw Manager Dunn go down at the colliery

yonder it was just more than I could stand.  I'm not made for it, same as you

or McGinty.  If the lodge will think none the worse of me, I'll just do as you

advise and leave you to yourselves for the evening."

     The men came in good time as arranged.  They were outwardly respectable

citizens, well clad and cleanly; but a judge of faces would have read little

hope for Birdy Edwards in those hard mouths and remorseless eyes.  There was

not a man in the room whose hands had not been reddened a dozen times before.

They were as hardened to human murder as a butcher to sheep.

     Foremost, of course, both in appearance and in guilt, was the formidable

Boss.  Harraway, the secretary, was a lean, bitter man with a long, scraggy

neck and nervous, jerky limbs, a man of incorruptible fidelity where the

finances of the order were concerned, and with no notion of justice or honesty

to anyone beyond.  The treasurer, Carter, was a middle-aged man, with an

impassive, rather sulky expression, and a yellow parchment skin.  He was a

capable organizer, and the actual details of nearly every outrage had sprung

from his plotting brain.  The two Willabys were men of action, tall, lithe

young fellows with determined faces, while their companion, Tiger Cormac, a

heavy, dark youth, was feared even by his own comrades for the ferocity of his

disposition.  These were the men who assembled that night under the roof of

McMurdo for the killing of the Pinkerton detective.

     Their host had placed whisky upon the table, and they had hastened to

prime themselves for the work before them.  Baldwin and Cormac were already

half-drunk, and the liquor had brought out all their ferocity.  Cormac placed

his hands on the stove for an instant--it had been lighted, for the nights

were still cold.

     "That will do," said he, with an oath.

     "Ay," said Baldwin, catching his meaning.  "If he is strapped to that, we

will have the truth out of him."

     "We'll have the truth out of him, never fear," said McMurdo.  He had

nerves of steel, this man; for though the whole weight of the affair was on

him his manner was as cool and unconcerned as ever.  The others marked it and

applauded.

     "You are the one to handle him," said the Boss approvingly.  "Not a

warning will he get till your hand is on his throat.  It's a pity there are no

shutters to your windows."

     McMurdo went from one to the other and drew the curtains tighter.  "Sure

no one can spy upon us now.  It's close upon the hour."

     "Maybe he won't come.  Maybe he'll get a sniff of danger," said the

secretary.

     "He'll come, never fear," McMurdo answered.  "He is as eager to come as

you can be to see him.  Hark to that!"

     They all sat like wax figures, some with their glasses arrested halfway

to their lips.  Three loud knocks had sounded at the door.

     "Hush!"  McMurdo raised his hand in caution.  An exulting glance went

round the circle, and hands were laid upon hidden weapons.

     "Not a sound, for your lives!" McMurdo whispered, as he went from the

room, closing the door carefully behind him.

     With strained ears the murderers waited.  They counted the steps of their

comrade down the passage.  Then they heard him open the outer door.  There

were a few words as of greeting.  Then they were aware of a strange step

inside and of an unfamiliar voice.  An instant later came the slam of the door

and the turning of the key in the lock.  Their prey was safe within the trap.

Tiger Cormac laughed horribly, and Boss McGinty clapped his great hand across

his mouth.

     "Be quiet, you fool!" he whispered.  "You'll be the undoing of us yet!"

     There was a mutter of conversation from the next room.  It seemed

interminable.  Then the door opened, and McMurdo appeared, his finger upon his

lip.

     He came to the end of the table and looked round at them.  A subtle

change had come over him.  His manner was as of one who has great work to do.

His face had set into granite firmness.  His eyes shone with a fierce

excitement behind his spectacles.  He had become a visible leader of men.

They stared at him with eager interest; but he said nothing.  Still with the

same singular gaze he looked from man to man.

     "Well!" cried Boss McGinty at last.  "Is he here?  Is Birdy Edwards

here?"

     "Yes," McMurdo answered slowly.  "Birdy Edwards is here.  I am Birdy

Edwards!"

     There were ten seconds after that brief speech during which the room

might have been empty, so profound was the silence.  The hissing of a kettle

upon the stove rose sharp and strident to the ear.  Seven white faces, all

turned upward to this man who dominated them, were set motionless with utter

terror.  Then, with a sudden shivering of glass, a bristle of glistening rifle

barrels broke through each window, while the curtains were torn from their

hangings.

     At the sight Boss McGinty gave the roar of a wounded bear and plunged for

the half-opened door.  A levelled revolver met him there with the stern blue

eyes of Captain Marvin of the Mine Police gleaming behind the sights.  The

Boss recoiled and fell back into his chair.

     "You're safer there, Councillor," said the man whom they had known as

McMurdo.  "And you, Baldwin, if you don't take your hand off your pistol,

you'll cheat the hangman yet.  Pull it out, or by the Lord that made me-- --

There, that will do.  There are forty armed men round this house, and you can

figure it out for yourself what chance you have.  Take their pistols, Marvin!"

     There was no possible resistance under the menace of those rifles.  The

men were disarmed.  Sulky, sheepish, and amazed, they still sat round the

table.

     "I'd like to say a word to you before we separate," said the man who had

trapped them.  "I guess we may not meet again until you see me on the stand in

the courthouse.  I'll give you something to think over between now and then.

You know me now for what I am.  At last I can put my cards on the table.  I am

Birdy Edwards of Pinkerton's.  I was chosen to break up your gang.  I had a

hard and dangerous game to play.  Not a soul, not one soul, not my nearest and

dearest, knew that I was playing it.  Only Captain Marvin here and my

employers knew that.  But it's over to-night, thank God, and I am the winner!"

     The seven pale, rigid faces looked up at him.  There was unappeasable

hatred in their eyes.  He read the relentless threat.

     "Maybe you think that the game is not over yet.  Well, I take my chance

of that.  Anyhow, some of you will take no further hand, and there are sixty

more besides yourselves that will see a jail this night.  I'll tell you this,

that when I was put upon this job I never believed there was such a society as

yours.  I thought it was paper talk, and that I would prove it so.  They told

me it was to do with the Freemen; so I went to Chicago and was made one.  Then

I was surer than ever that it was just paper talk; for I found no harm in the

society, but a deal of good.

     "Still, I had to carry out my job, and I came to the coal valleys.  When

I reached this place I learned that I was wrong and that it wasn't a dime

novel after all.  So I stayed to look after it.  I never killed a man in

Chicago.  I never minted a dollar in my life.  Those I gave you were as good

as any others; but I never spent money better.  But I knew the way into your

good wishes, and so I pretended to you that the law was after me.  It all

worked just as I thought.

     "So I joined your infernal lodge, and I took my share in your councils.

Maybe they will say that I was as bad as you.  They can say what they like, so

long as I get you.  But what is the truth?  The night I joined you beat up old

man Stanger.  I could not warn him, for there was no time; but I held your

hand, Baldwin, when you would have killed him.  If ever I have suggested

things, so as to keep my place among you, they were things which I knew I

could prevent.  I could not save Dunn and Menzies, for I did not know enough;

but I will see that their murderers are hanged.  I gave Chester Wilcox

warning, so that when I blew his house in he and his folk were in hiding.

There was many a crime that I could not stop; but if you look back and think

how often your man came home the other road, or was down in town when you went

for him, or stayed indoors when you thought he would come out, you'll see my

work."

     "You blasted traitor!" hissed McGinty through his closed teeth.

     "Ay, John McGinty, you may call me that if it eases your smart.  You and

your like have been the enemy of God and man in these parts.  It took a man to

get between you and the poor devils of men and women that you held under your

grip.  There was just one way of doing it, and I did it.  You call me a

traitor; but I guess there's many a thousand will call me a deliverer that

went down into hell to save them.  I've had three months of it.  I wouldn't

have three such months again if they let me loose in the treasury at

Washington for it.  I had to stay till I had it all, every man and every

secret right here in this hand.  I'd have waited a little longer if it hadn't

come to my knowledge that my secret was coming out.  A letter had come into

the town that would have set you wise to it all.  Then I had to act and act

quickly.

     "I've nothing more to say to you, except that when my time comes I'll die

the easier when I think of the work I have done in this valley.  Now, Marvin,

I'll keep you no more.  Take them in and get it over."

     There is little more to tell.  Scanlan had been given a sealed note to be

left at the address of Miss Ettie Shafter, a mission which he had accepted

with a wink and a knowing smile.  In the early hours of the morning a

beautiful woman and a much muffled man boarded a special train which had been

sent by the railroad company, and made a swift, unbroken journey out of the

land of danger.  It was the last time that ever either Ettie or her lover set

foot in the Valley of Fear.  Ten days later they were married in Chicago, with

old Jacob Shafter as witness of the wedding.

     The trial of the Scowrers was held far from the place where their

adherents might have terrified the guardians of the law.  In vain they

struggled.  In vain the money of the lodge--money squeezed by blackmail out of

the whole countryside--was spent like water in the attempt to save them.  That

cold, clear, unimpassioned statement from one who knew every detail of their

lives, their organization, and their crimes was unshaken by all the wiles of

their defenders.  At last after so many years they were broken and scattered.

The cloud was lifted forever from the valley.

     McGinty met his fate upon the scaffold, cringing and whining when the

last hour came.  Eight of his chief followers shared his fate.  Fifty-odd had

various degrees of imprisonment.  The work of Birdy Edwards was complete.

     And yet, as he had guessed, the game was not over yet.  There was another

hand to be played, and yet another and another.  Ted Baldwin, for one, had

escaped the scaffold; so had the Willabys; so had several others of the

fiercest spirits of the gang.  For ten years they were out of the world, and

then came a day when they were free once more--a day which Edwards, who knew

his men, was very sure would be an end of his life of peace.  They had sworn

an oath on all that they thought holy to have his blood as a vengeance for

their comrades.  And well they strove to keep their vow!

     From Chicago he was chased, after two attempts so near success that it

was sure that the third would get him.  From Chicago he went under a changed

name to California, and it was there that the light went for a time out of his

life when Ettie Edwards died.  Once again he was nearly killed, and once again

under the name of Douglas he worked in a lonely canon, where with an English

partner named Barker he amassed a fortune.  At last there came a warning to

him that the bloodhounds were on his track once more, and he cleared--only

just in time--for England.  And thence came the John Douglas who for a second

time married a worthy mate, and lived for five years as a Sussex county

gentleman, a life which ended with the strange happenings of which we have

heard.

$Unique_ID{SLH00092}

$Title{THE VALLEY OF FEAR; The Scowrers; Epilogue}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

$Subject{}

$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

$Log{Plate A*0007801.scf

Plate B*0007802.scf}

                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE VALLEY OF FEAR

                                    Part 2

                                 THE SCOWRERS

                                   Epilogue

THE police trial had passed, in which the case of John Douglas was referred to

a higher court.  So had the Quarter Sessions, at which he was acquitted as

having acted in self-defense.

     "Get him out of England at any cost," wrote Holmes to the wife.  "There

are forces here which may be more dangerous than those he has escaped.  There

is no safety for your husband in England."

     Two months had gone by, and the case had to some extent passed from our

minds.  Then one morning there came an enigmatic note slipped into our

letterbox.  "Dear me, Mr. Holmes.  Dear me!" said this singular epistle.

There was neither superscription nor signature.  I laughed at the quaint

message; but Holmes showed unwonted seriousness.

     "Deviltry, Watson!" he remarked, and sat long with a clouded brow.

     Late last night Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, brought up a message that a

gentleman wished to see Holmes, and that the matter was of the utmost

importance.  Close at the heels of his messenger came Cecil Barker, our friend

of the moated Manor House.  His face was drawn and haggard.

     "I've had bad news--terrible news, Mr. Holmes," said he.

     "I feared as much," said Holmes.

     "You have not had a cable, have you?"

     "I have had a note from someone who has."

     "It's poor Douglas.  They tell me his name is Edwards; but he will always

be Jack Douglas of Benito Canon to me.  I told you that they started together

for South Africa in the Palmyra three weeks ago."

     "Exactly."

     "The ship reached Cape Town last night.  I received this cable from Mrs.

Douglas this morning:

               Jack has been lost overboard in gale off St. Helena.  No one

          knows how accident occurred.

                                                              IVY DOUGLAS.

     "Ha!  It came like that, did it?" said Holmes thoughtfully.  "Well, I've

no doubt it was well stage-managed."

     "You mean that you think there was no accident?"

     "None in the world."

     "He was murdered?"

     "Surely!"

     "So I think also.  These infernal Scowrers, this cursed vindictive nest

of criminals-- --"

     "No, no, my good sir," said Holmes.  "There is a master hand here.  It is

no case of sawed-off shotguns and clumsy six-shooters.  You can tell an old

master by the sweep of his brush.  I can tell a Moriarty when I see one.  This

crime is from London, not from America."

     "But for what motive?"

     "Because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail, one whose whole

unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must succeed.  A great

brain and a huge organization have been turned to the extinction of one man.

It is crushing the nut with the triphammer--an absurd extravagance of energy--

but the nut is very effectually crushed all the same."

     "How came this man to have anything to do with it?"

     "I can only say that the first word that ever came to us of the business

was from one of his lieutenants.  These Americans were well advised.  Having

an English job to do, they took into partnership, as any foreign criminal

could do, this great consultant in crime.  From that moment their man was

doomed.  At first he would content himself by using his machinery in order to

find their victim.  Then he would indicate how the matter might be treated.

Finally, when he read in the reports of the failure of this agent, he would

step in himself with a master touch.  You heard me warn this man at Birlstone

Manor House that the coming danger was greater than the past.  Was I right?"

     Barker beat his head with his clenched fist in his impotent anger.  "Do

not tell me that we have to sit down under this?  Do you say that no one can

ever get level with this king devil?"

     "No, I don't say that," said Holmes, and his eyes seemed to be looking

far into the future.  "I don't say that he can't be beat.  But you must give

me time --you must give me time!"

     We all sat in silence for some minutes while those fateful eyes still

strained to pierce the veil.