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Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Sign of the Four

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Chapter 1
The Science of Deduction

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel- piece and his hypodermic
syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the
delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested
thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-
marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into
the velvet-lined arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction.

Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but custom had not
reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from day to day I had become more irritable at the
sight, and my conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage
to protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the
subject, but there was that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last
man with whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great powers, his
masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many extraordinary qualities, all
made me diffident and backward in crossing him.

Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken with my lunch, or the
additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that
I could hold out no longer.

"Which is it to-day?" I asked,--"morphine or cocaine?"

He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened. "It is
cocaine," he said,--"a seven-per- cent. solution. Would you care to try it?"

"No, indeed," I answered, brusquely. "My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign
yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it."

He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he said. "I suppose that its
influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying
to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment."

"But consider!" I said, earnestly. "Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and
excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process, which involves increased tissue-change and
may at last leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon
you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure,
risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak

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not only as one comrade to another, but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to
some extent answerable."

He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger- tips together and leaned his
elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who has a relish for conversation.

"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most
abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I
can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for
mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession,--or rather created it,
for I am the only one in the world."

"The only unofficial detective?" I said, raising my eyebrows.

"The only unofficial consulting detective," he answered. "I am the last and highest court of
appeal in detection. When Gregson or Lestrade or Athelney Jones are out of their
depths--which, by the way, is their normal state--the matter is laid before me. I examine the
data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist's opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My
name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar
powers, is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience of my methods of
work in the Jefferson Hope case."

"Yes, indeed," said I, cordially. "I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it
in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of 'A Study in Scarlet.'"

He shook his head sadly. "I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon
it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and
unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much
the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of
Euclid."

"But the romance was there," I remonstrated. "I could not tamper with the facts."

"Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of proportion should be observed in
treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical
reasoning from effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it."

I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I
confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my
pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years that I
had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion's
quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had a
Jezail bullet through it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me from walking, it
ached wearily at every change of the weather.

"My practice has extended recently to the Continent," said Holmes, after a while, filling up his
old brier-root pipe. "I was consulted last week by Francois Le Villard, who, as you probably
know, has come rather to the front lately in the French detective service. He has all the Celtic
power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide range of exact knowledge which is
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essential to the higher developments of his art. The case was concerned with a will, and
possessed some features of interest. I was able to refer him to two parallel cases, the one at
Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis in 1871, which have suggested to him the true solution.
Here is the letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance." He tossed over, as
he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a
profusion of notes of admiration, with stray "magnifiques," "coup-de-maitres," and "tours-de-
force," all testifying to the ardent admiration of the Frenchman.

"He speaks as a pupil to his master," said I.

"Oh, he rates my assistance too highly," said Sherlock Holmes, lightly. "He has considerable
gifts himself. He possesses two out of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He
has the power of observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in knowledge; and that
may come in time. He is now translating my small works into French."

"Your works?"

"Oh, didn't you know?" he cried, laughing. "Yes, I have been guilty of several monographs. They
are all upon technical subjects. Here, for example, is one 'Upon the Distinction between the
Ashes of the Various Tobaccoes.' In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar-,
cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, with colored plates illustrating the difference in the ash. It is a point
which is continually turning up in criminal trials, and which is sometimes of supreme importance
as a clue. If you can say definitely, for example, that some murder has been done by a man
who was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows your field of search. To the trained eye
there is as much difference between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the white fluff of bird's-
eye as there is between a cabbage and a potato."

"You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae," I remarked.

"I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the tracing of footsteps, with some
remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as a preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious
little work upon the influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes of the hands
of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, weavers, and diamond-polishers. That is a matter of
great practical interest to the scientific detective,--especially in cases of unclaimed bodies, or in
discovering the antecedents of criminals. But I weary you with my hobby."

"Not at all," I answered, earnestly. "It is of the greatest interest to me, especially since I have
had the opportunity of observing your practical application of it. But you spoke just now of
observation and deduction. Surely the one to some extent implies the other."

"Why, hardly," he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his arm- chair, and sending up thick
blue wreaths from his pipe. "For example, observation shows me that you have been to the
Wigmore Street Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there you
dispatched a telegram."

"Right!" said I. "Right on both points! But I confess that I don't see how you arrived at it. It was a
sudden impulse upon my part, and I have mentioned it to no one."

"It is simplicity itself," he remarked, chuckling at my surprise,--"so absurdly simple that an

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explanation is superfluous; and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of
deduction. Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mould adhering to your instep.
Just opposite the Seymour Street Office they have taken up the pavement and thrown up some
earth which lies in such a way that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering. The earth is of
this peculiar reddish tint which is found, as far as I know, nowhere else in the neighborhood. So
much is observation. The rest is deduction."

"How, then, did you deduce the telegram?"

"Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat opposite to you all morning. I
see also in your open desk there that you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of post-
cards. What could you go into the post-office for, then, but to send a wire? Eliminate all other
factors, and the one which remains must be the truth."

"In this case it certainly is so," I replied, after a little thought. "The thing, however, is, as you say,
of the simplest. Would you think me impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe
test?"

"On the contrary," he answered, "it would prevent me from taking a second dose of cocaine. I
should be delighted to look into any problem which you might submit to me."

"I have heard you say that it is difficult for a man to have any object in daily use without leaving
the impress of his individuality upon it in such a way that a trained observer might read it. Now, I
have here a watch which has recently come into my possession. Would you have the kindness
to let me have an opinion upon the character or habits of the late owner?"

I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in my heart, for the test
was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I intended it as a lesson against the somewhat
dogmatic tone which he occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard
at the dial, opened the back, and examined the works, first with his naked eyes and then with a
powerful convex lens. I could hardly keep from smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally
snapped the case to and handed it back.

"There are hardly any data," he remarked. "The watch has been recently cleaned, which robs
me of my most suggestive facts."

"You are right," I answered. "It was cleaned before being sent to me." In my heart I accused my
companion of putting forward a most lame and impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data
could he expect from an uncleaned watch?

"Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren," he observed, staring up at
the ceiling with dreamy, lack-lustre eyes. "Subject to your correction, I should judge that the
watch belonged to your elder brother, who inherited it from your father."

"That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. upon the back?"

"Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch is nearly fifty years back,
and the initials are as old as the watch: so it was made for the last generation. Jewelry usually
descends to the eldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as the father. Your
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father has, if I remember right, been dead many years. It has, therefore, been in the hands of
your eldest brother."

"Right, so far," said I. "Anything else?"

"He was a man of untidy habits,--very untidy and careless. He was left with good prospects, but
he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of
prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather."

I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with considerable bitterness in my
heart.

"This is unworthy of you, Holmes," I said. "I could not have believed that you would have
descended to this. You have made inquires into the history of my unhappy brother, and you now
pretend to deduce this knowledge in some fanciful way. You cannot expect me to believe that
you have read all this from his old watch! It is unkind, and, to speak plainly, has a touch of
charlatanism in it."

"My dear doctor," said he, kindly, "pray accept my apologies. Viewing the matter as an abstract
problem, I had forgotten how personal and painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you,
however, that I never even knew that you had a brother until you handed me the watch."

"Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these facts? They are absolutely
correct in every particular."

"Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of probability. I did not at all expect
to be so accurate."

"But it was not mere guess-work?"

"No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit,--destructive to the logical faculty. What seems
strange to you is only so because you do not follow my train of thought or observe the small
facts upon which large inferences may depend. For example, I began by stating that your
brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of that watch-case you notice that it is
not only dinted in two places, but it is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other
hard objects, such as coins or keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no great feat to assume that
a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so cavalierly must be a careless man. Neither is it a very
far-fetched inference that a man who inherits one article of such value is pretty well provided for
in other respects."

I nodded, to show that I followed his reasoning.

"It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a watch, to scratch the
number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside of the case. It is more handy than a label,
as there is no risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four such
numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case. Inference,--that your brother was often at
low water. Secondary inference,--that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could not
have redeemed the pledge. Finally, I ask you to look at the inner plate, which contains the key-
hole. Look at the thousands of scratches all round the hole,--marks where the key has slipped.
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What sober man's key could have scored those grooves? But you will never see a drunkard's
watch without them. He winds it at night, and he leaves these traces of his unsteady hand.
Where is the mystery in all this?"

"It is as clear as daylight," I answered. "I regret the injustice which I did you. I should have had
more faith in your marvellous faculty. May I ask whether you have any professional inquiry on
foot at present?"

"None. Hence the cocaine. I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for? Stand
at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog
swirls down the street and drifts across the dun- colored houses. What could be more
hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, doctor, when one has no
field upon which to exert them? Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no
qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth."

I had opened my mouth to reply to this tirade, when with a crisp knock our landlady entered,
bearing a card upon the brass salver.

"A young lady for you, sir," she said, addressing my companion.

"Miss Mary Morstan," he read. "Hum! I have no recollection of the name. Ask the young lady to
step up, Mrs. Hudson. Don't go, doctor. I should prefer that you remain."

Chapter II
The Statement of the Case

Miss Morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward composure of manner. She was
a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. There
was, however, a plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a suggestion of
limited means. The dress was a sombre grayish beige, untrimmed and unbraided, and she wore
a small turban of the same dull hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in the side. Her
face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her expression was sweet
and amiable, and her large blue eyes were singularly spiritual and sympathetic. In an
experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents, I have
never looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature. I
could not but observe that as she took the seat which Sherlock Holmes placed for her, her lip
trembled, her hand quivered, and she showed every sign of intense inward agitation.

"I have come to you, Mr. Holmes," she said, "because you once enabled my employer, Mrs.
Cecil Forrester, to unravel a little domestic complication. She was much impressed by your
kindness and skill."

"Mrs. Cecil Forrester," he repeated thoughtfully. "I believe that I was of some slight service to
her. The case, however, as I remember it, was a very simple one."

"She did not think so. But at least you cannot say the same of mine. I can hardly imagine
anything more strange, more utterly inexplicable, than the situation in which I find myself."

Holmes rubbed his hands, and his eyes glistened. He leaned forward in his chair with an
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expression of extraordinary concentration upon his clear-cut, hawklike features. "State your
case," said he, in brisk, business tones.

I felt that my position was an embarrassing one. "You will, I am sure, excuse me," I said, rising
from my chair.

To my surprise, the young lady held up her gloved hand to detain me. "If your friend," she said,
"would be good enough to stop, he might be of inestimable service to me."

I relapsed into my chair.

"Briefly," she continued, "the facts are these. My father was an officer in an Indian regiment who
sent me home when I was quite a child. My mother was dead, and I had no relative in England.
I was placed, however, in a comfortable boarding establishment at Edinburgh, and there I
remained until I was seventeen years of age. In the year 1878 my father, who was senior
captain of his regiment, obtained twelve months' leave and came home. He telegraphed to me
from London that he had arrived all safe, and directed me to come down at once, giving the
Langham Hotel as his address. His message, as I remember, was full of kindness and love. On
reaching London I drove to the Langham, and was informed that Captain Morstan was staying
there, but that he had gone out the night before and had not yet returned. I waited all day
without news of him. That night, on the advice of the manager of the hotel, I communicated with
the police, and next morning we advertised in all the papers. Our inquiries led to no result; and
from that day to this no word has ever been heard of my unfortunate father. He came home with
his heart full of hope, to find some peace, some comfort, and instead--" She put her hand to her
throat, and a choking sob cut short the sentence.

"The date?" asked Holmes, opening his note-book.

"He disappeared upon the 3d of December, 1878,--nearly ten years ago."

"His luggage?"

"Remained at the hotel. There was nothing in it to suggest a clue,--some clothes, some books,
and a considerable number of curiosities from the Andaman Islands. He had been one of the
officers in charge of the convict-guard there."

"Had he any friends in town?"

"Only one that we know of,--Major Sholto, of his own regiment, the 34th Bombay Infantry. The
major had retired some little time before, and lived at Upper Norwood. We communicated with
him, of course, but he did not even know that his brother officer was in England."

"A singular case," remarked Holmes.

"I have not yet described to you the most singular part. About six years ago--to be exact, upon
the 4th of May, 1882--an advertisement appeared in the Times asking for the address of Miss
Mary Morstan and stating that it would be to her advantage to come forward. There was no
name or address appended. I had at that time just entered the family of Mrs. Cecil Forrester in
the capacity of governess. By her advice I published my address in the advertisement column.
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The same day there arrived through the post a small card-board box addressed to me, which I
found to contain a very large and lustrous pearl. No word of writing was enclosed. Since then
every year upon the same date there has always appeared a similar box, containing a similar
pearl, without any clue as to the sender. They have been pronounced by an expert to be of a
rare variety and of considerable value. You can see for yourselves that they are very
handsome." She opened a flat box as she spoke, and showed me six of the finest pearls that I
had ever seen.

"Your statement is most interesting," said Sherlock Holmes. "Has anything else occurred to
you?"

"Yes, and no later than to-day. That is why I have come to you. This morning I received this
letter, which you will perhaps read for yourself."

"Thank you," said Holmes. "The envelope too, please. Postmark, London, S.W. Date, July 7.
Hum! Man's thumb-mark on corner,-- probably postman. Best quality paper. Envelopes at
sixpence a packet. Particular man in his stationery. No address. 'Be at the third pillar from the
left outside the Lyceum Theatre to- night at seven o'clock. If you are distrustful, bring two
friends. You are a wronged woman, and shall have justice. Do not bring police. If you do, all will
be in vain. Your unknown friend.' Well, really, this is a very pretty little mystery. What do you
intend to do, Miss Morstan?"

"That is exactly what I want to ask you."

"Then we shall most certainly go. You and I and--yes, why, Dr. Watson is the very man. Your
correspondent says two friends. He and I have worked together before."

"But would he come?" she asked, with something appealing in her voice and expression.

"I should be proud and happy," said I, fervently, "if I can be of any service."

"You are both very kind," she answered. "I have led a retired life, and have no friends whom I
could appeal to. If I am here at six it will do, I suppose?"

"You must not be later," said Holmes. "There is one other point, however. Is this handwriting the
same as that upon the pearl-box addresses?"

"I have them here," she answered, producing half a dozen pieces of paper.

"You are certainly a model client. You have the correct intuition. Let us see, now." He spread
out the papers upon the table, and gave little darting glances from one to the other. "They are
disguised hands, except the letter," he said, presently, "but there can be no question as to the
authorship. See how the irrepressible Greek e will break out, and see the twirl of the final s.
They are undoubtedly by the same person. I should not like to suggest false hopes, Miss
Morstan, but is there any resemblance between this hand and that of your father?"

"Nothing could be more unlike."

"I expected to hear you say so. We shall look out for you, then, at six. Pray allow me to keep the
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papers. I may look into the matter before then. It is only half-past three. Au revoir, then."

"Au revoir," said our visitor, and, with a bright, kindly glance from one to the other of us, she
replaced her pearl-box in her bosom and hurried away. Standing at the window, I watched her
walking briskly down the street, until the gray turban and white feather were but a speck in the
sombre crowd.

"What a very attractive woman!" I exclaimed, turning to my companion.

He had lit his pipe again, and was leaning back with drooping eyelids. "Is she?" he said,
languidly. "I did not observe."

"You really are an automaton,--a calculating-machine!" I cried. "There is something positively

inhuman in you at times."

He smiled gently. "It is of the first importance," he said, "not to allow your judgment to be biased
by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit,--a factor in a problem. The emotional
qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever
knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most
repellant man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million
upon the London poor."

"In this case, however--"

"I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule. Have you ever had occasion to
study character in handwriting? What do you make of this fellow's scribble?"

"It is legible and regular," I answered. "A man of business habits and some force of character."

Holmes shook his head. "Look at his long letters," he said. "They hardly rise above the common
herd. That d might be an a, and that l an e. Men of character always differentiate their long
letters, however illegibly they may write. There is vacillation in his k's and self-esteem in his
capitals. I am going out now. I have some few references to make. Let me recommend this
book,--one of the most remarkable ever penned. It is Winwood Reade's 'Martyrdom of Man.' I
shall be back in an hour."

I sat in the window with the volume in my hand, but my thoughts were far from the daring
speculations of the writer. My mind ran upon our late visitor,--her smiles, the deep rich tones of
her voice, the strange mystery which overhung her life. If she were seventeen at the time of her
father's disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty now,--a sweet age, when youth has lost
its self- consciousness and become a little sobered by experience. So I sat and mused, until
such dangerous thoughts came into my head that I hurried away to my desk and plunged
furiously into the latest treatise upon pathology. What was I, an army surgeon with a weak leg
and a weaker banking-account, that I should dare to think of such things? She was a unit, a
factor,--nothing more. If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man than to
attempt to brighten it by mere will-o'-the-wisps of the imagination.

Chapter III
In Quest of a Solution
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It was half-past five before Holmes returned. He was bright, eager, and in excellent spirits,--a
mood which in his case alternated with fits of the blackest depression.

"There is no great mystery in this matter," he said, taking the cup of tea which I had poured out
for him. "The facts appear to admit of only one explanation."

"What! you have solved it already?"

"Well, that would be too much to say. I have discovered a suggestive fact, that is all. It is,
however, VERY suggestive. The details are still to be added. I have just found, on consulting
the back files of the Times, that Major Sholto, of Upper Norword, late of the 34th Bombay
Infantry, died upon the 28th of April, 1882."

"I may be very obtuse, Holmes, but I fail to see what this suggests."

"No? You surprise me. Look at it in this way, then. Captain Morstan disappears. The only
person in London whom he could have visited is Major Sholto. Major Sholto denies having
heard that he was in London. Four years later Sholto dies. WITHIN A WEEK OF HIS DEATH
Captain Morstan's daughter receives a valuable present, which is repeated from year to year,
and now culminates in a letter which describes her as a wronged woman. What wrong can it
refer to except this deprivation of her father? And why should the presents begin immediately
after Sholto's death, unless it is that Sholto's heir knows something of the mystery and desires
to make compensation? Have you any alternative theory which will meet the facts?"

"But what a strange compensation! And how strangely made! Why, too, should he write a letter
now, rather than six years ago? Again, the letter speaks of giving her justice. What justice can
she have? It is too much to suppose that her father is still alive. There is no other injustice in her
case that you know of."

"There are difficulties; there are certainly difficulties," said Sherlock Holmes, pensively. "But our
expedition of to-night will solve them all. Ah, here is a four-wheeler, and Miss Morstan is inside.
Are you all ready? Then we had better go down, for it is a little past the hour."

I picked up my hat and my heaviest stick, but I observed that Holmes took his revolver from his
drawer and slipped it into his pocket. It was clear that he thought that our night's work might be
a serious one.

Miss Morstan was muffled in a dark cloak, and her sensitive face was composed, but pale. She
must have been more than woman if she did not feel some uneasiness at the strange enterprise
upon which we were embarking, yet her self-control was perfect, and she readily answered the
few additional questions which Sherlock Holmes put to her.

"Major Sholto was a very particular friend of papa's," she said. "His letters were full of allusions
to the major. He and papa were in command of the troops at the Andaman Islands, so they
were thrown a great deal together. By the way, a curious paper was found in papa's desk which
no one could understand. I don't suppose that it is of the slightest importance, but I thought you
might care to see it, so I brought it with me. It is here."

Holmes unfolded the paper carefully and smoothed it out upon his knee. He then very
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methodically examined it all over with his double lens.

"It is paper of native Indian manufacture," he remarked. "It has at some time been pinned to a
board. The diagram upon it appears to be a plan of part of a large building with numerous halls,
corridors, and passages. At one point is a small cross done in red ink, and above it is '3.37 from
left,' in faded pencil- writing. In the left-hand corner is a curious hieroglyphic like four crosses in
a line with their arms touching. Beside it is written, in very rough and coarse characters, 'The
sign of the four,--Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh, Abdullah Khan, Dost Akbar.' No, I confess
that I do not see how this bears upon the matter. Yet it is evidently a document of importance. It
has been kept carefully in a pocket-book; for the one side is as clean as the other."

"It was in his pocket-book that we found it."

"Preserve it carefully, then, Miss Morstan, for it may prove to be of use to us. I begin to suspect
that this matter may turn out to be much deeper and more subtle than I at first supposed. I must
reconsider my ideas." He leaned back in the cab, and I could see by his drawn brow and his
vacant eye that he was thinking intently. Miss Morstan and I chatted in an undertone about our
present expedition and its possible outcome, but our companion maintained his impenetrable
reserve until the end of our journey.

It was a September evening, and not yet seven o'clock, but the day had been a dreary one, and
a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city. Mud-colored clouds drooped sadly over the
muddy streets. Down the Strand the lamps were but misty splotches of diffused light which
threw a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement. The yellow glare from the shop-
windows streamed out into the steamy, vaporous air, and threw a murky, shifting radiance
across the crowded thoroughfare. There was, to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like in the
endless procession of faces which flitted across these narrow bars of light,--sad faces and glad,
haggard and merry. Like all human kind, they flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back
into the gloom once more. I am not subject to impressions, but the dull, heavy evening, with the
strange business upon which we were engaged, combined to make me nervous and depressed.
I could see from Miss Morstan's manner that she was suffering from the same feeling. Holmes
alone could rise superior to petty influences. He held his open note-book upon his knee, and
from time to time he jotted down figures and memoranda in the light of his pocket-lantern.

At the Lyceum Theatre the crowds were already thick at the side- entrances. In front a
continuous stream of hansoms and four- wheelers were rattling up, discharging their cargoes of
shirt- fronted men and beshawled, bediamonded women. We had hardly reached the third pillar,
which was our rendezvous, before a small, dark, brisk man in the dress of a coachman
accosted us.

"Are you the parties who come with Miss Morstan?" he asked.

"I am Miss Morstan, and these two gentlemen are my friends," said she.

He bent a pair of wonderfully penetrating and questioning eyes upon us. "You will excuse me,
miss," he said with a certain dogged manner, "but I was to ask you to give me your word that
neither of your companions is a police-officer."

"I give you my word on that," she answered.

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He gave a shrill whistle, on which a street Arab led across a four-wheeler and opened the door.
The man who had addressed us mounted to the box, while we took our places inside. We had
hardly done so before the driver whipped up his horse, and we plunged away at a furious pace
through the foggy streets.

The situation was a curious one. We were driving to an unknown place, on an unknown errand.
Yet our invitation was either a complete hoax,--which was an inconceivable hypothesis,--or else
we had good reason to think that important issues might hang upon our journey. Miss Morstan's
demeanor was as resolute and collected as ever. I endeavored to cheer and amuse her by
reminiscences of my adventures in Afghanistan; but, to tell the truth, I was myself so excited at
our situation and so curious as to our destination that my stories were slightly involved. To this
day she declares that I told her one moving anecdote as to how a musket looked into my tent at
the dead of night, and how I fired a double-barrelled tiger cub at it. At first I had some idea as to
the direction in which we were driving; but soon, what with our pace, the fog, and my own
limited knowledge of London, I lost my bearings, and knew nothing, save that we seemed to be
going a very long way. Sherlock Holmes was never at fault, however, and he muttered the
names as the cab rattled through squares and in and out by tortuous by-streets.

"Rochester Row," said he. "Now Vincent Square. Now we come out on the Vauxhall Bridge
Road. We are making for the Surrey side, apparently. Yes, I thought so. Now we are on the
bridge. You can catch glimpses of the river."

We did indeed get a fleeting view of a stretch of the Thames with the lamps shining upon the
broad, silent water; but our cab dashed on, and was soon involved in a labyrinth of streets upon
the other side.

"Wordsworth Road," said my companion. "Priory Road. Lark Hall Lane. Stockwell Place. Robert
Street. Cold Harbor Lane. Our quest does not appear to take us to very fashionable regions."

We had, indeed, reached a questionable and forbidding neighborhood. Long lines of dull brick
houses were only relieved by the coarse glare and tawdry brilliancy of public houses at the
corner. Then came rows of two-storied villas each with a fronting of miniature garden, and then
again interminable lines of new staring brick buildings,--the monster tentacles which the giant
city was throwing out into the country. At last the cab drew up at the third house in a new
terrace. None of the other houses were inhabited, and that at which we stopped was as dark as
its neighbors, save for a single glimmer in the kitchen window. On our knocking, however, the
door was instantly thrown open by a Hindoo servant clad in a yellow turban, white loose- fitting
clothes, and a yellow sash. There was something strangely incongruous in this Oriental figure
framed in the commonplace door-way of a third-rate suburban dwelling-house.

"The Sahib awaits you," said he, and even as he spoke there came a high piping voice from
some inner room. "Show them in to me, khitmutgar," it cried. "Show them straight in to me."

Chapter IV
The Story of the Bald-Headed Man

We followed the Indian down a sordid and common passage, ill lit and worse furnished, until he
came to a door upon the right, which he threw open. A blaze of yellow light streamed out upon
us, and in the centre of the glare there stood a small man with a very high head, a bristle of red
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hair all round the fringe of it, and a bald, shining scalp which shot out from among it like a
mountain-peak from fir-trees. He writhed his hands together as he stood, and his features were
in a perpetual jerk, now smiling, now scowling, but never for an instant in repose. Nature had
given him a pendulous lip, and a too visible line of yellow and irregular teeth, which he strove
feebly to conceal by constantly passing his hand over the lower part of his face. In spite of his
obtrusive baldness, he gave the impression of youth. In point of fact he had just turned his
thirtieth year.

"Your servant, Miss Morstan," he kept repeating, in a thin, high voice. "Your servant, gentlemen.
Pray step into my little sanctum. A small place, miss, but furnished to my own liking. An oasis of
art in the howling desert of South London."

We were all astonished by the appearance of the apartment into which he invited us. In that
sorry house it looked as out of place as a diamond of the first water in a setting of brass. The
richest and glossiest of curtains and tapestries draped the walls, looped back here and there to
expose some richly-mounted painting or Oriental vase. The carpet was of amber-and-black, so
soft and so thick that the foot sank pleasantly into it, as into a bed of moss. Two great tiger-
skins thrown athwart it increased the suggestion of Eastern luxury, as did a huge hookah which
stood upon a mat in the corner. A lamp in the fashion of a silver dove was hung from an almost
invisible golden wire in the centre of the room. As it burned it filled the air with a subtle and
aromatic odor.

"Mr. Thaddeus Sholto," said the little man, still jerking and smiling. "That is my name. You are
Miss Morstan, of course. And these gentlemen--"

"This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and this is Dr. Watson."

"A doctor, eh?" cried he, much excited. "Have you your stethoscope? Might I ask you--would
you have the kindness? I have grave doubts as to my mitral valve, if you would be so very good.
The aortic I may rely upon, but I should value your opinion upon the mitral."

I listened to his heart, as requested, but was unable to find anything amiss, save indeed that he
was in an ecstasy of fear, for he shivered from head to foot. "It appears to be normal," I said.
"You have no cause for uneasiness."

"You will excuse my anxiety, Miss Morstan," he remarked, airily. "I am a great sufferer, and I
have long had suspicions as to that valve. I am delighted to hear that they are unwarranted.
Had your father, Miss Morstan, refrained from throwing a strain upon his heart, he might have
been alive now."

I could have struck the man across the face, so hot was I at this callous and off-hand reference
to so delicate a matter. Miss Morstan sat down, and her face grew white to the lips. "I knew in
my heart that he was dead," said she.

"I can give you every information," said he, "and, what is more, I can do you justice; and I will,
too, whatever Brother Bartholomew may say. I am so glad to have your friends here, not only as
an escort to you, but also as witnesses to what I am about to do and say. The three of us can
show a bold front to Brother Bartholomew. But let us have no outsiders,--no police or officials.
We can settle everything satisfactorily among ourselves, without any interference. Nothing
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would annoy Brother Bartholomew more than any publicity." He sat down upon a low settee and
blinked at us inquiringly with his weak, watery blue eyes.

"For my part," said Holmes, "whatever you may choose to say will go no further."

I nodded to show my agreement.

"That is well! That is well!" said he. "May I offer you a glass of Chianti, Miss Morstan? Or of
Tokay? I keep no other wines. Shall I open a flask? No? Well, then, I trust that you have no
objection to tobacco-smoke, to the mild balsamic odor of the Eastern tobacco. I am a little
nervous, and I find my hookah an invaluable sedative." He applied a taper to the great bowl,
and the smoke bubbled merrily through the rose-water. We sat all three in a semicircle, with our
heads advanced, and our chins upon our hands, while the strange, jerky little fellow, with his
high, shining head, puffed uneasily in the centre.

"When I first determined to make this communication to you," said he, "I might have given you
my address, but I feared that you might disregard my request and bring unpleasant people with
you. I took the liberty, therefore, of making an appointment in such a way that my man Williams
might be able to see you first. I have complete confidence in his discretion, and he had orders, if
he were dissatisfied, to proceed no further in the matter. You will excuse these precautions, but
I am a man of somewhat retiring, and I might even say refined, tastes, and there is nothing
more unaesthetic than a policeman. I have a natural shrinking from all forms of rough
materialism. I seldom come in contact with the rough crowd. I live, as you see, with some little
atmosphere of elegance around me. I may call myself a patron of the arts. It is my weakness.
The landscape is a genuine Corot, and, though a connoisseur might perhaps throw a doubt
upon that Salvator Rosa, there cannot be the least question about the Bouguereau. I am partial
to the modern French school."

"You will excuse me, Mr. Sholto," said Miss Morstan, "but I am here at your request to learn
something which you desire to tell me. It is very late, and I should desire the interview to be as
short as possible."

"At the best it must take some time," he answered; "for we shall certainly have to go to Norwood
and see Brother Bartholomew. We shall all go and try if we can get the better of Brother
Bartholomew. He is very angry with me for taking the course which has seemed right to me. I
had quite high words with him last night. You cannot imagine what a terrible fellow he is when
he is angry."

"If we are to go to Norwood it would perhaps be as well to start at once," I ventured to remark.

He laughed until his ears were quite red. "That would hardly do," he cried. "I don't know what he
would say if I brought you in that sudden way. No, I must prepare you by showing you how we
all stand to each other. In the first place, I must tell you that there are several points in the story
of which I am myself ignorant. I can only lay the facts before you as far as I know them myself.

"My father was, as you may have guessed, Major John Sholto, once of the Indian army. He
retired some eleven years ago, and came to live at Pondicherry Lodge in Upper Norwood. He
had prospered in India, and brought back with him a considerable sum of money, a large
collection of valuable curiosities, and a staff of native servants. With these advantages he
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bought himself a house, and lived in great luxury. My twin-brother Bartholomew and I were the
only children.

"I very well remember the sensation which was caused by the disappearance of Captain
Morstan. We read the details in the papers, and, knowing that he had been a friend of our
father's, we discussed the case freely in his presence. He used to join in our speculations as to
what could have happened. Never for an instant did we suspect that he had the whole secret
hidden in his own breast,--that of all men he alone knew the fate of Arthur Morstan.

"We did know, however, that some mystery--some positive danger-- overhung our father. He
was very fearful of going out alone, and he always employed two prize-fighters to act as porters
at Pondicherry Lodge. Williams, who drove you to-night, was one of them. He was once light-
weight champion of England. Our father would never tell us what it was he feared, but he had a
most marked aversion to men with wooden legs. On one occasion he actually fired his revolver
at a wooden-legged man, who proved to be a harmless tradesman canvassing for orders. We
had to pay a large sum to hush the matter up. My brother and I used to think this a mere whim
of my father's, but events have since led us to change our opinion.

"Early in 1882 my father received a letter from India which was a great shock to him. He nearly
fainted at the breakfast-table when he opened it, and from that day he sickened to his death.
What was in the letter we could never discover, but I could see as he held it that it was short
and written in a scrawling hand. He had suffered for years from an enlarged spleen, but he now
became rapidly worse, and towards the end of April we were informed that he was beyond all
hope, and that he wished to make a last communication to us.

"When we entered his room he was propped up with pillows and breathing heavily. He besought
us to lock the door and to come upon either side of the bed. Then, grasping our hands, he made
a remarkable statement to us, in a voice which was broken as much by emotion as by pain. I
shall try and give it to you in his own very words.

"'I have only one thing,' he said, 'which weighs upon my mind at this supreme moment. It is my
treatment of poor Morstan's orphan. The cursed greed which has been my besetting sin through
life has withheld from her the treasure, half at least of which should have been hers. And yet I
have made no use of it myself,-- so blind and foolish a thing is avarice. The mere feeling of
possession has been so dear to me that I could not bear to share it with another. See that
chaplet dipped with pearls beside the quinine-bottle. Even that I could not bear to part with,
although I had got it out with the design of sending it to her. You, my sons, will give her a fair
share of the Agra treasure. But send her nothing--not even the chaplet--until I am gone. After
all, men have been as bad as this and have recovered.

"'I will tell you how Morstan died,' he continued. 'He had suffered for years from a weak heart,
but he concealed it from every one. I alone knew it. When in India, he and I, through a
remarkable chain of circumstances, came into possession of a considerable treasure. I brought
it over to England, and on the night of Morstan's arrival he came straight over here to claim his
share. He walked over from the station, and was admitted by my faithful Lal Chowdar, who is
now dead. Morstan and I had a difference of opinion as to the division of the treasure, and we
came to heated words. Morstan had sprung out of his chair in a paroxysm of anger, when he
suddenly pressed his hand to his side, his face turned a dusky hue, and he fell backwards,
cutting his head against the corner of the treasure-chest. When I stooped over him I found, to
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my horror, that he was dead.

"'For a long time I sat half distracted, wondering what I should do. My first impulse was, of
course, to call for assistance; but I could not but recognize that there was every chance that I
would be accused of his murder. His death at the moment of a quarrel, and the gash in his
head, would be black against me. Again, an official inquiry could not be made without bringing
out some facts about the treasure, which I was particularly anxious to keep secret. He had told
me that no soul upon earth knew where he had gone. There seemed to be no necessity why
any soul ever should know.

"'I was still pondering over the matter, when, looking up, I saw my servant, Lal Chowdar, in the
doorway. He stole in and bolted the door behind him. "Do not fear, Sahib," he said. "No one
need know that you have killed him. Let us hide him away, and who is the wiser?" "I did not kill
him," said I. Lal Chowdar shook his head and smiled. "I heard it all, Sahib," said he. "I heard you
quarrel, and I heard the blow. But my lips are sealed. All are asleep in the house. Let us put him
away together." That was enough to decide me. If my own servant could not believe my
innocence, how could I hope to make it good before twelve foolish tradesmen in a jury-box? Lal
Chowdar and I disposed of the body that night, and within a few days the London papers were
full of the mysterious disappearance of Captain Morstan. You will see from what I say that I can
hardly be blamed in the matter. My fault lies in the fact that we concealed not only the body, but
also the treasure, and that I have clung to Morstan's share as well as to my own. I wish you,
therefore, to make restitution. Put your ears down to my mouth. The treasure is hidden in--' At
this instant a horrible change came over his expression; his eyes stared wildly, his jaw dropped,
and he yelled, in a voice which I can never forget, 'Keep him out! For Christ's sake keep him
out!' We both stared round at the window behind us upon which his gaze was fixed. A face was
looking in at us out of the darkness. We could see the whitening of the nose where it was
pressed against the glass. It was a bearded, hairy face, with wild cruel eyes and an expression
of concentrated malevolence. My brother and I rushed towards the window, but the man was
gone. When we returned to my father his head had dropped and his pulse had ceased to beat.

"We searched the garden that night, but found no sign of the intruder, save that just under the
window a single footmark was visible in the flower-bed. But for that one trace, we might have
thought that our imaginations had conjured up that wild, fierce face. We soon, however, had
another and a more striking proof that there were secret agencies at work all round us. The
window of my father's room was found open in the morning, his cupboards and boxes had been
rifled, and upon his chest was fixed a torn piece of paper, with the words 'The sign of the four'
scrawled across it. What the phrase meant, or who our secret visitor may have been, we never
knew. As far as we can judge, none of my father's property had been actually stolen, though
everything had been turned out. My brother and I naturally associated this peculiar incident with
the fear which haunted my father during his life; but it is still a complete mystery to us."

The little man stopped to relight his hookah and puffed thoughtfully for a few moments. We had
all sat absorbed, listening to his extraordinary narrative. At the short account of her father's
death Miss Morstan had turned deadly white, and for a moment I feared that she was about to
faint. She rallied however, on drinking a glass of water which I quietly poured out for her from a
Venetian carafe upon the side-table. Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair with an
abstracted expression and the lids drawn low over his glittering eyes. As I glanced at him I could
not but think how on that very day he had complained bitterly of the commonplaceness of life.
Here at least was a problem which would tax his sagacity to the utmost. Mr. Thaddeus Sholto
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looked from one to the other of us with an obvious pride at the effect which his story had
produced, and then continued between the puffs of his overgrown pipe.

"My brother and I," said he, "were, as you may imagine, much excited as to the treasure which
my father had spoken of. For weeks and for months we dug and delved in every part of the
garden, without discovering its whereabouts. It was maddening to think that the hiding-place
was on his very lips at the moment that he died. We could judge the splendor of the missing
riches by the chaplet which he had taken out. Over this chaplet my brother Bartholomew and I
had some little discussion. The pearls were evidently of great value, and he was averse to part
with them, for, between friends, my brother was himself a little inclined to my father's fault. He
thought, too, that if we parted with the chaplet it might give rise to gossip and finally bring us into
trouble. It was all that I could do to persuade him to let me find out Miss Morstan's address and
send her a detached pearl at fixed intervals, so that at least she might never feel destitute."

"It was a kindly thought," said our companion, earnestly. "It was extremely good of you."

The little man waved his hand deprecatingly. "We were your trustees," he said. "That was the
view which I took of it, though Brother Bartholomew could not altogether see it in that light. We
had plenty of money ourselves. I desired no more. Besides, it would have been such bad taste
to have treated a young lady in so scurvy a fashion. 'Le mauvais gout mene au crime.' The
French have a very neat way of putting these things. Our difference of opinion on this subject
went so far that I thought it best to set up rooms for myself: so I left Pondicherry Lodge, taking
the old khitmutgar and Williams with me. Yesterday, however, I learn that an event of extreme
importance has occurred. The treasure has been discovered. I instantly communicated with
Miss Morstan, and it only remains for us to drive out to Norwood and demand our share. I
explained my views last night to Brother Bartholomew: so we shall be expected, if not welcome,
visitors."

Mr. Thaddeus Sholto ceased, and sat twitching on his luxurious settee. We all remained silent,
with our thoughts upon the new development which the mysterious business had taken. Holmes
was the first to spring to his feet.

"You have done well, sir, from first to last," said he. "It is possible that we may be able to make
you some small return by throwing some light upon that which is still dark to you. But, as Miss
Morstan remarked just now, it is late, and we had best put the matter through without delay."

Our new acquaintance very deliberately coiled up the tube of his hookah, and produced from
behind a curtain a very long befrogged topcoat with Astrakhan collar and cuffs. This he buttoned
tightly up, in spite of the extreme closeness of the night, and finished his attire by putting on a
rabbit-skin cap with hanging lappets which covered the ears, so that no part of him was visible
save his mobile and peaky face. "My health is somewhat fragile," he remarked, as he led the
way down the passage. "I am compelled to be a valetudinarian."

Our cab was awaiting us outside, and our programme was evidently prearranged, for the driver
started off at once at a rapid pace. Thaddeus Sholto talked incessantly, in a voice which rose
high above the rattle of the wheels.

"Bartholomew is a clever fellow," said he. "How do you think he found out where the treasure
was? He had come to the conclusion that it was somewhere indoors: so he worked out all the
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cubic space of the house, and made measurements everywhere, so that not one inch should be
unaccounted for. Among other things, he found that the height of the building was seventy-four
feet, but on adding together the heights of all the separate rooms, and making every allowance
for the space between, which he ascertained by borings, he could not bring the total to more
than seventy feet. There were four feet unaccounted for. These could only be at the top of the
building. He knocked a hole, therefore, in the lath- and-plaster ceiling of the highest room, and
there, sure enough, he came upon another little garret above it, which had been sealed up and
was known to no one. In the centre stood the treasure-chest, resting upon two rafters. He
lowered it through the hole, and there it lies. He computes the value of the jewels at not less
than half a million sterling."

At the mention of this gigantic sum we all stared at one another open-eyed. Miss Morstan, could
we secure her rights, would change from a needy governess to the richest heiress in England.
Surely it was the place of a loyal friend to rejoice at such news; yet I am ashamed to say that
selfishness took me by the soul, and that my heart turned as heavy as lead within me. I
stammered out some few halting words of congratulation, and then sat downcast, with my head
drooped, deaf to the babble of our new acquaintance. He was clearly a confirmed
hypochondriac, and I was dreamily conscious that he was pouring forth interminable trains of
symptoms, and imploring information as to the composition and action of innumerable quack
nostrums, some of which he bore about in a leather case in his pocket. I trust that he may not
remember any of the answers which I gave him that night. Holmes declares that he overheard
me caution him against the great danger of taking more than two drops of castor oil, while I
recommended strychnine in large doses as a sedative. However that may be, I was certainly
relieved when our cab pulled up with a jerk and the coachman sprang down to open the door.

"This, Miss Morstan, is Pondicherry Lodge," said Mr. Thaddeus Sholto, as he handed her out.

Chapter V
The Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge

It was nearly eleven o'clock when we reached this final stage of our night's adventures. We had
left the damp fog of the great city behind us, and the night was fairly fine. A warm wind blew
from the westward, and heavy clouds moved slowly across the sky, with half a moon peeping
occasionally through the rifts. It was clear enough to see for some distance, but Thaddeus
Sholto took down one of the side-lamps from the carriage to give us a better light upon our way.

Pondicherry Lodge stood in its own grounds, and was girt round with a very high stone wall
topped with broken glass. A single narrow iron-clamped door formed the only means of
entrance. On this our guide knocked with a peculiar postman-like rat-tat.

"Who is there?" cried a gruff voice from within.

"It is I, McMurdo. You surely know my knock by this time."

There was a grumbling sound and a clanking and jarring of keys. The door swung heavily back,
and a short, deep-chested man stood in the opening, with the yellow light of the lantern shining
upon his protruded face and twinkling distrustful eyes.

"That you, Mr. Thaddeus? But who are the others? I had no orders about them from the
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master."

"No, McMurdo? You surprise me! I told my brother last night that I should bring some friends."

"He ain't been out o' his room to-day, Mr. Thaddeus, and I have no orders. You know very well
that I must stick to regulations. I can let you in, but your friends must just stop where they are."

This was an unexpected obstacle. Thaddeus Sholto looked about him in a perplexed and
helpless manner. "This is too bad of you, McMurdo!" he said. "If I guarantee them, that is
enough for you. There is the young lady, too. She cannot wait on the public road at this hour."

"Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus," said the porter, inexorably. "Folk may be friends o' yours, and yet
no friends o' the master's. He pays me well to do my duty, and my duty I'll do. I don't know none
o' your friends."

"Oh, yes you do, McMurdo," cried Sherlock Holmes, genially. "I don't think you can have
forgotten me. Don't you remember the amateur who fought three rounds with you at Alison's
rooms on the night of your benefit four years back?"

"Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" roared the prize-fighter. "God's truth! how could I have mistook you?
If instead o' standin' there so quiet you had just stepped up and given me that cross- hit of yours
under the jaw, I'd ha' known you without a question. Ah, you're one that has wasted your gifts,
you have! You might have aimed high, if you had joined the fancy."

"You see, Watson, if all else fails me I have still one of the scientific professions open to me,"
said Holmes, laughing. "Our friend won't keep us out in the cold now, I am sure."

"In you come, sir, in you come,--you and your friends," he answered. "Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus,
but orders are very strict. Had to be certain of your friends before I let them in."

Inside, a gravel path wound through desolate grounds to a huge clump of a house, square and
prosaic, all plunged in shadow save where a moonbeam struck one corner and glimmered in a
garret window. The vast size of the building, with its gloom and its deathly silence, struck a chill
to the heart. Even Thaddeus Sholto seemed ill at ease, and the lantern quivered and rattled in
his hand.

"I cannot understand it," he said. "There must be some mistake. I distinctly told Bartholomew
that we should be here, and yet there is no light in his window. I do not know what to make of it."

"Does he always guard the premises in this way?" asked Holmes.

"Yes; he has followed my father's custom. He was the favorite son, you know, and I sometimes
think that my father may have told him more than he ever told me. That is Bartholomew's
window up there where the moonshine strikes. It is quite bright, but there is no light from within,
I think."

"None," said Holmes. "But I see the glint of a light in that little window beside the door."

"Ah, that is the housekeeper's room. That is where old Mrs. Bernstone sits. She can tell us all
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about it. But perhaps you would not mind waiting here for a minute or two, for if we all go in
together and she has no word of our coming she may be alarmed. But hush! what is that?"

He held up the lantern, and his hand shook until the circles of light flickered and wavered all
round us. Miss Morstan seized my wrist, and we all stood with thumping hearts, straining our
ears. From the great black house there sounded through the silent night the saddest and most
pitiful of sounds,--the shrill, broken whimpering of a frightened woman.

"It is Mrs. Bernstone," said Sholto. "She is the only woman in the house. Wait here. I shall be
back in a moment." He hurried for the door, and knocked in his peculiar way. We could see a
tall old woman admit him, and sway with pleasure at the very sight of him.

"Oh, Mr. Thaddeus, sir, I am so glad you have come! I am so glad you have come, Mr.
Thaddeus, sir!" We heard her reiterated rejoicings until the door was closed and her voice died
away into a muffled monotone.

Our guide had left us the lantern. Holmes swung it slowly round, and peered keenly at the
house, and at the great rubbish-heaps which cumbered the grounds. Miss Morstan and I stood
together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two who
had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection
had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each
other. I have marvelled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should
go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me
for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand, like two children, and there was peace in
our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us.

"What a strange place!" she said, looking round.

"It looks as though all the moles in England had been let loose in it. I have seen something of
the sort on the side of a hill near Ballarat, where the prospectors had been at work."

"And from the same cause," said Holmes. "These are the traces of the treasure-seekers. You
must remember that they were six years looking for it. No wonder that the grounds look like a
gravel- pit."

At that moment the door of the house burst open, and Thaddeus Sholto came running out, with
his hands thrown forward and terror in his eyes.

"There is something amiss with Bartholomew!" he cried. "I am frightened! My nerves cannot
stand it." He was, indeed, half blubbering with fear, and his twitching feeble face peeping out
from the great Astrakhan collar had the helpless appealing expression of a terrified child.

"Come into the house," said Holmes, in his crisp, firm way.

"Yes, do!" pleaded Thaddeus Sholto. "I really do not feel equal to giving directions."

We all followed him into the housekeeper's room, which stood upon the left-hand side of the
passage. The old woman was pacing up and down with a scared look and restless picking
fingers, but the sight of Miss Morstan appeared to have a soothing effect upon her.
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"God bless your sweet calm face!" she cried, with an hysterical sob. "It does me good to see
you. Oh, but I have been sorely tried this day!"

Our companion patted her thin, work-worn hand, and murmured some few words of kindly
womanly comfort which brought the color back into the others bloodless cheeks.

"Master has locked himself in and will not answer me," she explained. "All day I have waited to
hear from him, for he often likes to be alone; but an hour ago I feared that something was
amiss, so I went up and peeped through the key-hole. You must go up, Mr. Thaddeus,--you
must go up and look for yourself. I have seen Mr. Bartholomew Sholto in joy and in sorrow for
ten long years, but I never saw him with such a face on him as that."

Sherlock Holmes took the lamp and led the way, for Thaddeus Sholto's teeth were chattering in
his head. So shaken was he that I had to pass my hand under his arm as we went up the stairs,
for his knees were trembling under him. Twice as we ascended Holmes whipped his lens out of
his pocket and carefully examined marks which appeared to me to be mere shapeless smudges
of dust upon the cocoa-nut matting which served as a stair- carpet. He walked slowly from step
to step, holding the lamp, and shooting keen glances to right and left. Miss Morstan had
remained behind with the frightened housekeeper.

The third flight of stairs ended in a straight passage of some length, with a great picture in
Indian tapestry upon the right of it and three doors upon the left. Holmes advanced along it in
the same slow and methodical way, while we kept close at his heels, with our long black
shadows streaming backwards down the corridor. The third door was that which we were
seeking. Holmes knocked without receiving any answer, and then tried to turn the handle and
force it open. It was locked on the inside, however, and by a broad and powerful bolt, as we
could see when we set our lamp up against it. The key being turned, however, the hole was not
entirely closed. Sherlock Holmes bent down to it, and instantly rose again with a sharp intaking
of the breath.

"There is something devilish in this, Watson," said he, more moved than I had ever before seen
him. "What do you make of it?"

I stooped to the hole, and recoiled in horror. Moonlight was streaming into the room, and it was
bright with a vague and shifty radiance. Looking straight at me, and suspended, as it were, in
the air, for all beneath was in shadow, there hung a face,--the very face of our companion
Thaddeus. There was the same high, shining head, the same circular bristle of red hair, the
same bloodless countenance. The features were set, however, in a horrible smile, a fixed and
unnatural grin, which in that still and moonlit room was more jarring to the nerves than any
scowl or contortion. So like was the face to that of our little friend that I looked round at him to
make sure that he was indeed with us. Then I recalled to mind that he had mentioned to us that
his brother and he were twins.

"This is terrible!" I said to Holmes. "What is to be done?"

"The door must come down," he answered, and, springing against it, he put all his weight upon
the lock. It creaked and groaned, but did not yield. Together we flung ourselves upon it once
more, and this time it gave way with a sudden snap, and we found ourselves within
Bartholomew Sholto's chamber.
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It appeared to have been fitted up as a chemical laboratory. A double line of glass-stoppered

bottles was drawn up upon the wall opposite the door, and the table was littered over with
Bunsen burners, test-tubes, and retorts. In the corners stood carboys of acid in wicker baskets.
One of these appeared to leak or to have been broken, for a stream of dark-colored liquid had
trickled out from it, and the air was heavy with a peculiarly pungent, tar-like odor. A set of steps
stood at one side of the room, in the midst of a litter of lath and plaster, and above them there
was an opening in the ceiling large enough for a man to pass through. At the foot of the steps a
long coil of rope was thrown carelessly together.

By the table, in a wooden arm-chair, the master of the house was seated all in a heap, with his
head sunk upon his left shoulder, and that ghastly, inscrutable smile upon his face. He was stiff
and cold, and had clearly been dead many hours. It seemed to me that not only his features but
all his limbs were twisted and turned in the most fantastic fashion. By his hand upon the table
there lay a peculiar instrument,--a brown, close-grained stick, with a stone head like a hammer,
rudely lashed on with coarse twine. Beside it was a torn sheet of note-paper with some words
scrawled upon it. Holmes glanced at it, and then handed it to me.

"You see," he said, with a significant raising of the eyebrows.

In the light of the lantern I read, with a thrill of horror, "The sign of the four."

"In God's name, what does it all mean?" I asked.

"It means murder," said he, stooping over the dead man. "Ah, I expected it. Look here!" He
pointed to what looked like a long, dark thorn stuck in the skin just above the ear.

"It looks like a thorn," said I.

"It is a thorn. You may pick it out. But be careful, for it is poisoned."

I took it up between my finger and thumb. It came away from the skin so readily that hardly any
mark was left behind. One tiny speck of blood showed where the puncture had been.

"This is all an insoluble mystery to me," said I. "It grows darker instead of clearer."

"On the contrary," he answered, "it clears every instant. I only require a few missing links to
have an entirely connected case."

We had almost forgotten our companion's presence since we entered the chamber. He was still
standing in the door-way, the very picture of terror, wringing his hands and moaning to himself.
Suddenly, however, he broke out into a sharp, querulous cry.

"The treasure is gone!" he said. "They have robbed him of the treasure! There is the hole
through which we lowered it. I helped him to do it! I was the last person who saw him! I left him
here last night, and I heard him lock the door as I came down-stairs."

"What time was that?"

"It was ten o'clock. And now he is dead, and the police will be called in, and I shall be suspected
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of having had a hand in it. Oh, yes, I am sure I shall. But you don't think so, gentlemen? Surely
you don't think that it was I? Is it likely that I would have brought you here if it were I? Oh, dear!
oh, dear! I know that I shall go mad!" He jerked his arms and stamped his feet in a kind of
convulsive frenzy.

"You have no reason for fear, Mr. Sholto," said Holmes, kindly, putting his hand upon his
shoulder. "Take my advice, and drive down to the station to report this matter to the police. Offer
to assist them in every way. We shall wait here until your return."

The little man obeyed in a half-stupefied fashion, and we heard him stumbling down the stairs in
the dark.

Chapter VI
Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration

"Now, Watson," said Holmes, rubbing his hands, "we have half an hour to ourselves. Let us
make good use of it. My case is, as I have told you, almost complete; but we must not err on the
side of over-confidence. Simple as the case seems now, there may be something deeper
underlying it."

"Simple!" I ejaculated.

"Surely," said he, with something of the air of a clinical professor expounding to his class. "Just
sit in the corner there, that your footprints may not complicate matters. Now to work! In the first
place, how did these folk come, and how did they go? The door has not been opened since last
night. How of the window?" He carried the lamp across to it, muttering his observations aloud
the while, but addressing them to himself rather than to me. "Window is snibbed on the inner
side. Framework is solid. No hinges at the side. Let us open it. No water-pipe near. Roof quite
out of reach. Yet a man has mounted by the window. It rained a little last night. Here is the print
of a foot in mould upon the sill. And here is a circular muddy mark, and here again upon the
floor, and here again by the table. See here, Watson! This is really a very pretty demonstration."

I looked at the round, well-defined muddy discs. "This is not a footmark," said I.

"It is something much more valuable to us. It is the impression of a wooden stump. You see
here on the sill is the boot-mark, a heavy boot with the broad metal heel, and beside it is the
mark of the timber-toe."

"It is the wooden-legged man."

"Quite so. But there has been some one else,--a very able and efficient ally. Could you scale
that wall, doctor?"

I looked out of the open window. The moon still shone brightly on that angle of the house. We
were a good sixty feet from the round, and, look where I would, I could see no foothold, nor as
much as a crevice in the brick-work.

"It is absolutely impossible," I answered.

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"Without aid it is so. But suppose you had a friend up here who lowered you this good stout
rope which I see in the corner, securing one end of it to this great hook in the wall. Then, I think,
if you were an active man, You might swarm up, wooden leg and all. You would depart, of
course, in the same fashion, and your ally would draw up the rope, untie it from the hook, shut
the window, snib it on the inside, and get away in the way that he originally came. As a minor
point it may be noted," he continued, fingering the rope, "that our wooden-legged friend, though
a fair climber, was not a professional sailor. His hands were far from horny. My lens discloses
more than one blood-mark, especially towards the end of the rope, from which I gather that he
slipped down with such velocity that he took the skin off his hand."

"This is all very well," said I, "but the thing becomes more unintelligible than ever. How about
this mysterious ally? How came he into the room?"

"Yes, the ally!" repeated Holmes, pensively. "There are features of interest about this ally. He
lifts the case from the regions of the commonplace. I fancy that this ally breaks fresh ground in
the annals of crime in this country,--though parallel cases suggest themselves from India, and, if
my memory serves me, from Senegambia."

"How came he, then?" I reiterated. "The door is locked, the window is inaccessible. Was it
through the chimney?"

"The grate is much too small," he answered. "I had already considered that possibility."

"How then?" I persisted.

"You will not apply my precept," he said, shaking his head. "How often have I said to you that
when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, HOWEVER IMPROBABLE, must
be the truth? We know that he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney. We
also know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is no concealment
possible. Whence, then, did he come?"

"He came through the hole in the roof," I cried.

"Of course he did. He must have done so. If you will have the kindness to hold the lamp for me,
we shall now extend our researches to the room above,--the secret room in which the treasure
was found."

He mounted the steps, and, seizing a rafter with either hand, he swung himself up into the
garret. Then, lying on his face, he reached down for the lamp and held it while I followed him.

The chamber in which we found ourselves was about ten feet one way and six the other. The
floor was formed by the rafters, with thin lath-and-plaster between, so that in walking one had to
step from beam to beam. The roof ran up to an apex, and was evidently the inner shell of the
true roof of the house. There was no furniture of any sort, and the accumulated dust of years lay
thick upon the floor.

"Here you are, you see," said Sherlock Holmes, putting his hand against the sloping wall. "This
is a trap-door which leads out on to the roof. I can press it back, and here is the roof itself,
sloping at a gentle angle. This, then, is the way by which Number One entered. Let us see if we
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can find any other traces of his individuality."

He held down the lamp to the floor, and as he did so I saw for the second time that night a
startled, surprised look come over his face. For myself, as I followed his gaze my skin was cold
under my clothes. The floor was covered thickly with the prints of a naked foot,--clear, well
defined, perfectly formed, but scarce half the size of those of an ordinary man.

"Holmes," I said, in a whisper, "a child has done the horrid thing."

He had recovered his self-possession in an instant. "I was staggered for the moment," he said,
"but the thing is quite natural. My memory failed me, or I should have been able to foretell it.
There is nothing more to be learned here. Let us go down."

"What is your theory, then, as to those footmarks?" I asked, eagerly, when we had regained the
lower room once more.

"My dear Watson, try a little analysis yourself," said he, with a touch of impatience. "You know
my methods. Apply them, and it will be instructive to compare results."

"I cannot conceive anything which will cover the facts," I answered.

"It will be clear enough to you soon," he said, in an off-hand way. "I think that there is nothing
else of importance here, but I will look." He whipped out his lens and a tape measure, and
hurried about the room on his knees, measuring, comparing, examining, with his long thin nose
only a few inches from the planks, and his beady eyes gleaming and deep-set like those of a
bird. So swift, silent, and furtive were his movements, like those of a trained blood-hound
picking out a scent, that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made had
he turned his energy and sagacity against the law, instead of exerting them in its defense. As he
hunted about, he kept muttering to himself, and finally he broke out into a loud crow of delight.

"We are certainly in luck," said he. "We ought to have very little trouble now. Number One has
had the misfortune to tread in the creosote. You can see the outline of the edge of his small foot
here at the side of this evil-smelling mess. The carboy has been cracked, You see, and the stuff
has leaked out."

"What then?" I asked.

"Why, we have got him, that's all," said he. "I know a dog that would follow that scent to the
world's end. If a pack can track a trailed herring across a shire, how far can a specially-trained
hound follow so pungent a smell as this? It sounds like a sum in the rule of three. The answer
should give us the--But halloo! here are the accredited representatives of the law."

Heavy steps and the clamor of loud voices were audible from below, and the hall door shut with
a loud crash.

"Before they come," said Holmes, "just put your hand here on this poor fellow's arm, and here
on his leg. What do you feel?"

"The muscles are as hard as a board," I answered.

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"Quite so. They are in a state of extreme contraction, far exceeding the usual rigor mortis.
Coupled with this distortion of the face, this Hippocratic smile, or 'risus sardonicus,' as the old
writers called it, what conclusion would it suggest to your mind?"

"Death from some powerful vegetable alkaloid," I answered,--"some strychnine-like substance

which would produce tetanus."

"That was the idea which occurred to me the instant I saw the drawn muscles of the face. On
getting into the room I at once looked for the means by which the poison had entered the
system. As you saw, I discovered a thorn which had been driven or shot with no great force into
the scalp. You observe that the part struck was that which would be turned towards the hole in
the ceiling if the man were erect in his chair. Now examine the thorn."

I took it up gingerly and held it in the light of the lantern. It was long, sharp, and black, with a
glazed look near the point as though some gummy substance had dried upon it. The blunt end
had been trimmed and rounded off with a knife.

"Is that an English thorn?" he asked.

"No, it certainly is not."

"With all these data you should be able to draw some just inference. But here are the regulars:
so the auxiliary forces may beat a retreat."

As he spoke, the steps which had been coming nearer sounded loudly on the passage, and a
very stout, portly man in a gray suit strode heavily into the room. He was red-faced, burly and
plethoric, with a pair of very small twinkling eyes which looked keenly out from between swollen
and puffy pouches. He was closely followed by an inspector in uniform, and by the still
palpitating Thaddeus Sholto.

"Here's a business!" he cried, in a muffled, husky voice. "Here's a pretty business! But who are
all these? Why, the house seems to be as full as a rabbit-warren!"

"I think you must recollect me, Mr. Athelney Jones," said Holmes, quietly.

"Why, of course I do!" he wheezed. "It's Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the theorist. Remember you! I'll
never forget how you lectured us all on causes and inferences and effects in the Bishopgate
jewel case. It's true you set us on the right track; but you'll own now that it was more by good
luck than good guidance."

"It was a piece of very simple reasoning."

"Oh, come, now, come! Never be ashamed to own up. But what is all this? Bad business! Bad
business! Stern facts here,--no room for theories. How lucky that I happened to be out at
Norwood over another case! I was at the station when the message arrived. What d'you think
the man died of?"

"Oh, this is hardly a case for me to theorize over," said Holmes, dryly.

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"No, no. Still, we can't deny that you hit the nail on the head sometimes. Dear me! Door locked,
I understand. Jewels worth half a million missing. How was the window?"

"Fastened; but there are steps on the sill."

"Well, well, if it was fastened the steps could have nothing to do with the matter. That's common
sense. Man might have died in a fit; but then the jewels are missing. Ha! I have a theory. These
flashes come upon me at times.--Just step outside, sergeant, and you, Mr. Sholto. Your friend
can remain.--What do you think of this, Holmes? Sholto was, on his own confession, with his
brother last night. The brother died in a fit, on which Sholto walked off with the treasure. How's
that?"

"On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door on the inside."

"Hum! There's a flaw there. Let us apply common sense to the matter. This Thaddeus Sholto
WAS with his brother; there WAS a quarrel; so much we know. The brother is dead and the
jewels are gone. So much also we know. No one saw the brother from the time Thaddeus left
him. His bed had not been slept in. Thaddeus is evidently in a most disturbed state of mind. His
appearance is--well, not attractive. You see that I am weaving my web round Thaddeus. The
net begins to close upon him."

"You are not quite in possession of the facts yet," said Holmes. "This splinter of wood, which I
have every reason to believe to be poisoned, was in the man's scalp where you still see the
mark; this card, inscribed as you see it, was on the table; and beside it lay this rather curious
stone-headed instrument. How does all that fit into your theory?"

"Confirms it in every respect," said the fat detective, pompously. "House is full of Indian
curiosities. Thaddeus brought this up, and if this splinter be poisonous Thaddeus may as well
have made murderous use of it as any other man. The card is some hocus-pocus,--a blind, as
like as not. The only question is, how did he depart? Ah, of course, here is a hole in the roof."
With great activity, considering his bulk, he sprang up the steps and squeezed through into the
garret, and immediately afterwards we heard his exulting voice proclaiming that he had found
the trap-door.

"He can find something," remarked Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. "He has occasional
glimmerings of reason. Il n'y a pas des sots si incommodes que ceux qui ont de l'esprit!"

"You see!" said Athelney Jones, reappearing down the steps again. "Facts are better than mere
theories, after all. My view of the case is confirmed. There is a trap-door communicating with the
roof, and it is partly open."

"It was I who opened it."

"Oh, indeed! You did notice it, then?" He seemed a little crestfallen at the discovery. "Well,
whoever noticed it, it shows how our gentleman got away. Inspector!"

"Yes, sir," from the passage.

"Ask Mr. Sholto to step this way.--Mr. Sholto, it is my duty to inform you that anything which you
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may say will be used against you. I arrest you in the queen's name as being concerned in the
death of your brother."

"There, now! Didn't I tell you!" cried the poor little man, throwing out his hands, and looking from
one to the other of us.

"Don't trouble yourself about it, Mr. Sholto," said Holmes. "I think that I can engage to clear you
of the charge."

"Don't promise too much, Mr. Theorist,--don't promise too much!" snapped the detective. "You
may find it a harder matter than you think."

"Not only will I clear him, Mr. Jones, but I will make you a free present of the name and
description of one of the two people who were in this room last night. His name, I have every
reason to believe, is Jonathan Small. He is a poorly-educated man, small, active, with his right
leg off, and wearing a wooden stump which is worn away upon the inner side. His left boot has
a coarse, square-toed sole, with an iron band round the heel. He is a middle-aged man, much
sunburned, and has been a convict. These few indications may be of some assistance to you,
coupled with the fact that there is a good deal of skin missing from the palm of his hand. The
other man--"

"Ah! the other man--?" asked Athelney Jones, in a sneering voice, but impressed none the less,
as I could easily see, by the precision of the other's manner.

"Is a rather curious person," said Sherlock Holmes, turning upon his heel. "I hope before very
long to be able to introduce you to the pair of them.--A word with you, Watson."

He led me out to the head of the stair. "This unexpected occurrence," he said, "has caused us
rather to lose sight of the original purpose of our journey."

"I have just been thinking so," I answered. "It is not right that Miss Morstan should remain in this
stricken house."

"No. You must escort her home. She lives with Mrs. Cecil Forrester, in Lower Camberwell: so it
is not very far. I will wait for you here if you will drive out again. Or perhaps you are too tired?"

"By no means. I don't think I could rest until I know more of this fantastic business. I have seen
something of the rough side of life, but I give you my word that this quick succession of strange
surprises to-night has shaken my nerve completely. I should like, however, to see the matter
through with you, now that I have got so far."

"Your presence will be of great service to me," he answered. "We shall work the case out
independently, and leave this fellow Jones to exult over any mare's-nest which he may choose
to construct. When you have dropped Miss Morstan I wish you to go on to No. 3 Pinchin Lane,
down near the water's edge at Lambeth. The third house on the right-hand side is a bird-
stuffer's: Sherman is the name. You will see a weasel holding a young rabbit in the window.
Knock old Sherman up, and tell him, with my compliments, that I want Toby at once. You will
bring Toby back in the cab with you."

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"A dog, I suppose."

"Yes,--a queer mongrel, with a most amazing power of scent. I would rather have Toby's help
than that of the whole detective force of London."

"I shall bring him, then," said I. "It is one now. I ought to be back before three, if I can get a fresh
horse."

"And I," said Holmes, "shall see what I can learn from Mrs. Bernstone, and from the Indian
servant, who, Mr. Thaddeus tell me, sleeps in the next garret. Then I shall study the great
Jones's methods and listen to his not too delicate sarcasms. 'Wir sind gewohnt das die
Menschen verhoehnen was sie nicht verstehen.' Goethe is always pithy."

Chapter VII
The Episode of the Barrel

The police had brought a cab with them, and in this I escorted Miss Morstan back to her home.
After the angelic fashion of women, she had borne trouble with a calm face as long as there
was some one weaker than herself to support, and I had found her bright and placid by the side
of the frightened housekeeper. In the cab, however, she first turned faint, and then burst into a
passion of weeping,--so sorely had she been tried by the adventures of the night. She has told
me since that she thought me cold and distant upon that journey. She little guessed the struggle
within my breast, or the effort of self-restraint which held me back. My sympathies and my love
went out to her, even as my hand had in the garden. I felt that years of the conventionalities of
life could not teach me to know her sweet, brave nature as had this one day of strange
experiences. Yet there were two thoughts which sealed the words of affection upon my lips. She
was weak and helpless, shaken in mind and nerve. It was to take her at a disadvantage to
obtrude love upon her at such a time. Worse still, she was rich. If Holmes's researches were
successful, she would be an heiress. Was it fair, was it honorable, that a half-pay surgeon
should take such advantage of an intimacy which chance had brought about? Might she not
look upon me as a mere vulgar fortune-seeker? I could not bear to risk that such a thought
should cross her mind. This Agra treasure intervened like an impassable barrier between us.

It was nearly two o'clock when we reached Mrs. Cecil Forrester's. The servants had retired
hours ago, but Mrs. Forrester had been so interested by the strange message which Miss
Morstan had received that she had sat up in the hope of her return. She opened the door
herself, a middle-aged, graceful woman, and it gave me joy to see how tenderly her arm stole
round the other's waist and how motherly was the voice in which she greeted her. She was
clearly no mere paid dependant, but an honored friend. I was introduced, and Mrs. Forrester
earnestly begged me to step in and tell her our adventures. I explained, however, the
importance of my errand, and promised faithfully to call and report any progress which we might
make with the case. As we drove away I stole a glance back, and I still seem to see that little
group on the step, the two graceful, clinging figures, the half-opened door, the hall light shining
through stained glass, the barometer, and the bright stair-rods. It was soothing to catch even
that passing glimpse of a tranquil English home in the midst of the wild, dark business which
had absorbed us.

And the more I thought of what had happened, the wilder and darker it grew. I reviewed the
whole extraordinary sequence of events as I rattled on through the silent gas-lit streets. There
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was the original problem: that at least was pretty clear now. The death of Captain Morstan, the
sending of the pearls, the advertisement, the letter,--we had had light upon all those events.
They had only led us, however, to a deeper and far more tragic mystery. The Indian treasure,
the curious plan found among Morstan's baggage, the strange scene at Major Sholto's death,
the rediscovery of the treasure immediately followed by the murder of the discoverer, the very
singular accompaniments to the crime, the footsteps, the remarkable weapons, the words upon
the card, corresponding with those upon Captain Morstan's chart,--here was indeed a labyrinth
in which a man less singularly endowed than my fellow-lodger might well despair of ever finding
the clue.

Pinchin Lane was a row of shabby two-storied brick houses in the lower quarter of Lambeth. I
had to knock for some time at No. 3 before I could make my impression. At last, however, there
was the glint of a candle behind the blind, and a face looked out at the upper window.

"Go on, you drunken vagabone," said the face. "If you kick up any more row I'll open the
kennels and let out forty-three dogs upon you."

"If you'll let one out it's just what I have come for," said I.

"Go on!" yelled the voice. "So help me gracious, I have a wiper in the bag, an' I'll drop it on your
'ead if you don't hook it."

"But I want a dog," I cried.

"I won't be argued with!" shouted Mr. Sherman. "Now stand clear, for when I say 'three,' down
goes the wiper."

"Mr. Sherlock Holmes--" I began, but the words had a most magical effect, for the window
instantly slammed down, and within a minute the door was unbarred and open. Mr. Sherman
was a lanky, lean old man, with stooping shoulders, a stringy neck, and blue- tinted glasses.

"A friend of Mr. Sherlock is always welcome," said he. "Step in, sir. Keep clear of the badger; for
he bites. Ah, naughty, naughty, would you take a nip at the gentleman?" This to a stoat which
thrust its wicked head and red eyes between the bars of its cage. "Don't mind that, sir: it's only a
slow-worm. It hain't got no fangs, so I gives it the run o' the room, for it keeps the bettles down.
You must not mind my bein' just a little short wi' you at first, for I'm guyed at by the children, and
there's many a one just comes down this lane to knock me up. What was it that Mr. Sherlock
Holmes wanted, sir?"

"He wanted a dog of yours."

"Ah! that would be Toby."

"Yes, Toby was the name."

"Toby lives at No. 7 on the left here." He moved slowly forward with his candle among the queer
animal family which he had gathered round him. In the uncertain, shadowy light I could see
dimly that there were glancing, glimmering eyes peeping down at us from every cranny and
corner. Even the rafters above our heads were lined by solemn fowls, who lazily shifted their
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weight from one leg to the other as our voices disturbed their slumbers.

Toby proved to an ugly, long-haired, lop-eared creature, half spaniel and half lurcher, brown-
and-white in color, with a very clumsy waddling gait. It accepted after some hesitation a lump of
sugar which the old naturalist handed to me, and, having thus sealed an alliance, it followed me
to the cab, and made no difficulties about accompanying me. It had just struck three on the
Palace clock when I found myself back once more at Pondicherry Lodge. The ex-prize-fighter
McMurdo had, I found, been arrested as an accessory, and both he and Mr. Sholto had been
marched off to the station. Two constables guarded the narrow gate, but they allowed me to
pass with the dog on my mentioning the detective's name.

Holmes was standing on the door-step, with his hands in his pockets, smoking his pipe.

"Ah, you have him there!" said he. "Good dog, then! Atheney Jones has gone. We have had an
immense display of energy since you left. He has arrested not only friend Thaddeus, but the
gatekeeper, the housekeeper, and the Indian servant. We have the place to ourselves, but for a
sergeant up-stairs. Leave the dog here, and come up."

We tied Toby to the hall table, and reascended the stairs. The room was as he had left it, save
that a sheet had been draped over the central figure. A weary-looking police-sergeant reclined
in the corner.

"Lend me your bull's-eye, sergeant," said my companion. "Now tie this bit of card round my
neck, so as to hang it in front of me. Thank you. Now I must kick off my boots and
stockings.--Just you carry them down with you, Watson. I am going to do a little climbing. And
dip my handkerchief into the creasote. That will do. Now come up into the garret with me for a
moment."

We clambered up through the hole. Holmes turned his light once more upon the footsteps in the
dust.

"I wish you particularly to notice these footmarks," he said. "Do you observe anything
noteworthy about them?"

"They belong," I said, "to a child or a small woman."

"Apart from their size, though. Is there nothing else?"

"They appear to be much as other footmarks."

"Not at all. Look here! This is the print of a right foot in the dust. Now I make one with my naked
foot beside it. What is the chief difference?"

"Your toes are all cramped together. The other print has each toe distinctly divided."

"Quite so. That is the point. Bear that in mind. Now, would you kindly step over to that flap-
window and smell the edge of the wood-work? I shall stay here, as I have this handkerchief in
my hand."
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I did as he directed, and was instantly conscious of a strong tarry smell.

"That is where he put his foot in getting out. If YOU can trace him, I should think that Toby will
have no difficulty. Now run down-stairs, loose the dog, and look out for Blondin."

By the time that I got out into the grounds Sherlock Holmes was on the roof, and I could see him
like an enormous glow-worm crawling very slowly along the ridge. I lost sight of him behind a
stack of chimneys, but he presently reappeared, and then vanished once more upon the
opposite side. When I made my way round there I found him seated at one of the corner eaves.

"That you, Watson?" he cried.

"Yes."

"This is the place. What is that black thing down there?"

"A water-barrel."

"Top on it?"

"Yes."

"No sign of a ladder?"

"No."

"Confound the fellow! It's a most break-neck place. I ought to be able to come down where he
could climb up. The water-pipe feels pretty firm. Here goes, anyhow."

There was a scuffling of feet, and the lantern began to come steadily down the side of the wall.
Then with a light spring he came on to the barrel, and from there to the earth.

"It was easy to follow him," he said, drawing on his stockings and boots. "Tiles were loosened
the whole way along, and in his hurry he had dropped this. It confirms my diagnosis, as you
doctors express it."

The object which he held up to me was a small pocket or pouch woven out of colored grasses
and with a few tawdry beads strung round it. In shape and size it was not unlike a cigarette-
case. Inside were half a dozen spines of dark wood, sharp at one end and rounded at the other,
like that which had struck Bartholomew Sholto.

"They are hellish things," said he. "Look out that you don't prick yourself. I'm delighted to have
them, for the chances are that they are all he has. There is the less fear of you or me finding
one in our skin before long. I would sooner face a Martini bullet, myself. Are you game for a six-
mile trudge, Watson?"

"Certainly," I answered.

"Your leg will stand it?"

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"Oh, yes."

"Here you are, doggy! Good old Toby! Smell it, Toby, smell it!" He pushed the creasote
handkerchief under the dog's nose, while the creature stood with its fluffy legs separated, and
with a most comical cock to its head, like a connoisseur sniffing the bouquet of a famous
vintage. Holmes then threw the handkerchief to a distance, fastened a stout cord to the
mongrel's collar, and led him to the foot of the water-barrel. The creature instantly broke into a
succession of high, tremulous yelps, and, with his nose on the ground, and his tail in the air,
pattered off upon the trail at a pace which strained his leash and kept us at the top of our speed.

The east had been gradually whitening, and we could now see some distance in the cold gray
light. The square, massive house, with its black, empty windows and high, bare walls, towered
up, sad and forlorn, behind us. Our course led right across the grounds, in and out among the
trenches and pits with which they were scarred and intersected. The whole place, with its
scattered dirt-heaps and ill-grown shrubs, had a blighted, ill-omened look which harmonized
with the black tragedy which hung over it.

On reaching the boundary wall Toby ran along, whining eagerly, underneath its shadow, and
stopped finally in a corner screened by a young beech. Where the two walls joined, several
bricks had been loosened, and the crevices left were worn down and rounded upon the lower
side, as though they had frequently been used as a ladder. Holmes clambered up, and, taking
the dog from me, he dropped it over upon the other side.

"There's the print of wooden-leg's hand," he remarked, as I mounted up beside him. "You see
the slight smudge of blood upon the white plaster. What a lucky thing it is that we have had no
very heavy rain since yesterday! The scent will lie upon the road in spite of their eight-and-
twenty hours' start."

I confess that I had my doubts myself when I reflected upon the great traffic which had passed
along the London road in the interval. My fears were soon appeased, however. Toby never
hesitated or swerved, but waddled on in his peculiar rolling fashion. Clearly, the pungent smell
of the creasote rose high above all other contending scents.

"Do not imagine," said Holmes, "that I depend for my success in this case upon the mere
chance of one of these fellows having put his foot in the chemical. I have knowledge now which
would enable me to trace them in many different ways. This, however, is the readiest and, since
fortune has put it into our hands, I should be culpable if I neglected it. It has, however,
prevented the case from becoming the pretty little intellectual problem which it at one time
promised to be. There might have been some credit to be gained out of it, but for this too
palpable clue."

"There is credit, and to spare," said I. "I assure you, Holmes, that I marvel at the means by
which you obtain your results in this case, even more than I did in the Jefferson Hope Murder.
The thing seems to me to be deeper and more inexplicable. How, for example, could you
describe with such confidence the wooden- legged man?"

"Pshaw, my dear boy! it was simplicity itself. I don't wish to be theatrical. It is all patent and
above-board. Two officers who are in command of a convict-guard learn an important secret as
to buried treasure. A map is drawn for them by an Englishman named Jonathan Small. You
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remember that we saw the name upon the chart in Captain Morstan's possession. He had
signed it in behalf of himself and his associates,--the sign of the four, as he somewhat
dramatically called it. Aided by this chart, the officers--or one of them--gets the treasure and
brings it to England, leaving, we will suppose, some condition under which he received it
unfulfilled. Now, then, why did not Jonathan Small get the treasure himself? The answer is
obvious. The chart is dated at a time when Morstan was brought into close association with
convicts. Jonathan Small did not get the treasure because he and his associates were
themselves convicts and could not get away."

"But that is mere speculation," said I.

"It is more than that. It is the only hypothesis which covers the facts. Let us see how it fits in with
the sequel. Major Sholto remains at peace for some years, happy in the possession of his
treasure. Then he receives a letter from India which gives him a great fright. What was that?"

"A letter to say that the men whom he had wronged had been set free."

"Or had escaped. That is much more likely, for he would have known what their term of
imprisonment was. It would not have been a surprise to him. What does he do then? He guards
himself against a wooden-legged man,--a white man, mark you, for he mistakes a white
tradesman for him, and actually fires a pistol at him. Now, only one white man's name is on the
chart. The others are Hindoos or Mohammedans. There is no other white man. Therefore we
may say with confidence that the wooden-legged man is identical with Jonathan Small. Does
the reasoning strike you as being faulty?"

"No: it is clear and concise."

"Well, now, let us put ourselves in the place of Jonathan Small. Let us look at it from his point of
view. He comes to England with the double idea of regaining what he would consider to be his
rights and of having his revenge upon the man who had wronged him. He found out where
Sholto lived, and very possibly he established communications with some one inside the house.
There is this butler, Lal Rao, whom we have not seen. Mrs. Bernstone gives him far from a good
character. Small could not find out, however, where the treasure was hid, for no one ever knew,
save the major and one faithful servant who had died. Suddenly Small learns that the major is
on his death-bed. In a frenzy lest the secret of the treasure die with him, he runs the gauntlet of
the guards, makes his way to the dying man's window, and is only deterred from entering by the
presence of his two sons. Mad with hate, however, against the dead man, he enters the room
that night, searches his private papers in the hope of discovering some memorandum relating to
the treasure, and finally leaves a momento of his visit in the short inscription upon the card. He
had doubtless planned beforehand that should he slay the major he would leave some such
record upon the body as a sign that it was not a common murder, but, from the point of view of
the four associates, something in the nature of an act of justice. Whimsical and bizarre conceits
of this kind are common enough in the annals of crime, and usually afford valuable indications
as to the criminal. Do you follow all this?"

"Very clearly."

"Now, what could Jonathan Small do? He could only continue to keep a secret watch upon the
efforts made to find the treasure. Possibly he leaves England and only comes back at intervals.
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Then comes the discovery of the garret, and he is instantly informed of it. We again trace the
presence of some confederate in the household. Jonathan, with his wooden leg, is utterly
unable to reach the lofty room of Bartholomew Sholto. He takes with him, however, a rather
curious associate, who gets over this difficulty, but dips his naked foot into creasote, whence
comes Toby, and a six-mile limp for a half-pay officer with a damaged tendo Achillis."

"But it was the associate, and not Jonathan, who committed the crime."

"Quite so. And rather to Jonathan's disgust, to judge by the way he stamped about when he got
into the room. He bore no grudge against Bartholomew Sholto, and would have preferred if he
could have been simply bound and gagged. He did not wish to put his head in a halter. There
was no help for it, however: the savage instincts of his companion had broken out, and the
poison had done its work: so Jonathan Small left his record, lowered the treasure-box to the
ground, and followed it himself. That was the train of events as far as I can decipher them. Of
course as to his personal appearance he must be middle-aged, and must be sunburned after
serving his time in such an oven as the Andamans. His height is readily calculated from the
length of his stride, and we know that he was bearded. His hairiness was the one point which
impressed itself upon Thaddeus Sholto when he saw him at the window. I don't know that there
is anything else."

"The associate?"

"Ah, well, there is no great mystery in that. But you will know all about it soon enough. How
sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some
gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It
shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and
I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great
elemental forces of nature! Are you well up in your Jean Paul?"

"Fairly so. I worked back to him through Carlyle."

"That was like following the brook to the parent lake. He makes one curious but profound
remark. It is that the chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own
smallness. It argues, you see, a power of comparison and of appreciation which is in itself a
proof of nobility. There is much food for thought in Richter. You have not a pistol, have you?"

"I have my stick."

"It is just possible that we may need something of the sort if we get to their lair. Jonathan I shall
leave to you, but if the other turns nasty I shall shoot him dead." He took out his revolver as he
spoke, and, having loaded two of the chambers, he put it back into the right-hand pocket of his
jacket.

We had during this time been following the guidance of Toby down the half-rural villa-lined
roads which lead to the metropolis. Now, however, we were beginning to come among
continuous streets, where laborers and dockmen were already astir, and slatternly women were
taking down shutters and brushing door-steps. At the square-topped corner public houses
business was just beginning, and rough-looking men were emerging, rubbing their sleeves
across their beards after their morning wet. Strange dogs sauntered up and stared wonderingly
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at us as we passed, but our inimitable Toby looked neither to the right nor to the left, but trotted
onwards with his nose to the ground and an occasional eager whine which spoke of a hot scent.

We had traversed Streatham, Brixton, Camberwell, and now found ourselves in Kennington
Lane, having borne away through the side- streets to the east of the Oval. The men whom we
pursued seemed to have taken a curiously zigzag road, with the idea probably of escaping
observation. They had never kept to the main road if a parallel side-street would serve their turn.
At the foot of Kennington Lane they had edged away to the left through Bond Street and Miles
Street. Where the latter street turns into Knight's Place, Toby ceased to advance, but began to
run backwards and forwards with one ear cocked and the other drooping, the very picture of
canine indecision. Then he waddled round in circles, looking up to us from time to time, as if to
ask for sympathy in his embarrassment.

"What the deuce is the matter with the dog?" growled Holmes. "They surely would not take a
cab, or go off in a balloon."

"Perhaps they stood here for some time," I suggested.

"Ah! it's all right. He's off again," said my companion, in a tone of relief.

He was indeed off, for after sniffing round again he suddenly made up his mind, and darted
away with an energy and determination such as he had not yet shown. The scent appeared to
be much hotter than before, for he had not even to put his nose on the ground, but tugged at his
leash and tried to break into a run. I cold see by the gleam in Holmes's eyes that he thought we
were nearing the end of our journey.

Our course now ran down Nine Elms until we came to Broderick and Nelson's large timber-yard,
just past the White Eagle tavern. Here the dog, frantic with excitement, turned down through the
side-gate into the enclosure, where the sawyers were already at work. On the dog raced
through sawdust and shavings, down an alley, round a passage, between two wood-piles, and
finally, with a triumphant yelp, sprang upon a large barrel which still stood upon the hand-trolley
on which it had been brought. With lolling tongue and blinking eyes, Toby stood upon the cask,
looking from one to the other of us for some sign of appreciation. The staves of the barrel and
the wheels of the trolley were smeared with a dark liquid, and the whole air was heavy with the
smell of creasote.

Sherlock Holmes and I looked blankly at each other, and then burst simultaneously into an
uncontrollable fit of laughter.

Chapter VIII
The Baker Street Irregulars

"What now?" I asked. "Toby has lost his character for infallibility."

"He acted according to his lights," said Holmes, lifting him down from the barrel and walking him
out of the timber-yard. "If you consider how much creasote is carted about London in one day, it
is no great wonder that our trail should have been crossed. It is much used now, especially for
the seasoning of wood. Poor Toby is not to blame."

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"We must get on the main scent again, I suppose."

"Yes. And, fortunately, we have no distance to go. Evidently what puzzled the dog at the corner
of Knight's Place was that there were two different trails running in opposite directions. We took
the wrong one. It only remains to follow the other."

There was no difficulty about this. On leading Toby to the place where he had committed his
fault, he cast about in a wide circle and finally dashed off in a fresh direction.

"We must take care that he does not now bring us to the place where the creasote-barrel came
from," I observed.

"I had thought of that. But you notice that he keeps on the pavement, whereas the barrel passed
down the roadway. No, we are on the true scent now."

It tended down towards the river-side, running through Belmont Place and Prince's Street. At
the end of Broad Street it ran right down to the water's edge, where there was a small wooden
wharf. Toby led us to the very edge of this, and there stood whining, looking out on the dark
current beyond.

"We are out of luck," said Holmes. "They have taken to a boat here." Several small punts and
skiffs were lying about in the water and on the edge of the wharf. We took Toby round to each in
turn, but, though he sniffed earnestly, he made no sign.

Close to the rude landing-stage was a small brick house, with a wooden placard slung out
through the second window. "Mordecai Smith" was printed across it in large letters, and,
underneath, "Boats to hire by the hour or day." A second inscription above the door informed us
that a steam launch was kept,--a statement which was confirmed by a great pile of coke upon
the jetty. Sherlock Holmes looked slowly round, and his face assumed an ominous expression.

"This looks bad," said he. "These fellows are sharper than I expected. They seem to have
covered their tracks. There has, I fear, been preconcerted management here."

He was approaching the door of the house, when it opened, and a little, curly-headed lad of six
came running out, followed by a stoutish, red-faced woman with a large sponge in her hand.

"You come back and be washed, Jack," she shouted. "Come back, you young imp; for if your
father comes home and finds you like that, he'll let us hear of it."

"Dear little chap!" said Holmes, strategically. "What a rosy- cheeked young rascal! Now, Jack, is
there anything you would like?"

The youth pondered for a moment. "I'd like a shillin'," said he.

"Nothing you would like better?"

"I'd like two shillin' better," the prodigy answered, after some thought.

"Here you are, then! Catch!--A fine child, Mrs. Smith!"

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"Lor' bless you, sir, he is that, and forward. He gets a'most too much for me to manage,
'specially when my man is away days at a time."

"Away, is he?" said Holmes, in a disappointed voice. "I am sorry for that, for I wanted to speak
to Mr. Smith."

"He's been away since yesterday mornin', sir, and, truth to tell, I am beginnin' to feel frightened
about him. But if it was about a boat, sir, maybe I could serve as well."

"I wanted to hire his steam launch."

"Why, bless you, sir, it is in the steam launch that he has gone. That's what puzzles me; for I
know there ain't more coals in her than would take her to about Woolwich and back. If he'd been
away in the barge I'd ha' thought nothin'; for many a time a job has taken him as far as
Gravesend, and then if there was much doin' there he might ha' stayed over. But what good is a
steam launch without coals?"

"He might have bought some at a wharf down the river."

"He might, sir, but it weren't his way. Many a time I've heard him call out at the prices they
charge for a few odd bags. Besides, I don't like that wooden-legged man, wi' his ugly face and
outlandish talk. What did he want always knockin' about here for?"

"A wooden-legged man?" said Holmes, with bland surprise.

"Yes, sir, a brown, monkey-faced chap that's called more'n once for my old man. It was him that
roused him up yesternight, and, what's more, my man knew he was comin', for he had steam up
in the launch. I tell you straight, sir, I don't feel easy in my mind about it."

"But, my dear Mrs. Smith," said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders, "You are frightening yourself
about nothing. How could you possibly tell that it was the wooden-legged man who came in the
night? I don't quite understand how you can be so sure."

"His voice, sir. I knew his voice, which is kind o' thick and foggy. He tapped at the winder,--about
three it would be. 'Show a leg, matey,' says he: 'time to turn out guard.' My old man woke up
Jim,--that's my eldest,--and away they went, without so much as a word to me. I could hear the
wooden leg clackin' on the stones."

"And was this wooden-legged man alone?"

"Couldn't say, I am sure, sir. I didn't hear no one else."

"I am sorry, Mrs. Smith, for I wanted a steam launch, and I have heard good reports of the--Let
me see, what is her name?"

"The Aurora, sir."

"Ah! She's not that old green launch with a yellow line, very broad in the beam?"

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"No, indeed. She's as trim a little thing as any on the river. She's been fresh painted, black with
two red streaks."

"Thanks. I hope that you will hear soon from Mr. Smith. I am going down the river; and if I
should see anything of the Aurora I shall let him know that you are uneasy. A black funnel, you
say?"

"No, sir. Black with a white band."

"Ah, of course. It was the sides which were black. Good- morning, Mrs. Smith.--There is a
boatman here with a wherry, Watson. We shall take it and cross the river.

"The main thing with people of that sort," said Holmes, as we sat in the sheets of the wherry, "is
never to let them think that their information can be of the slightest importance to you. If you do,
they will instantly shut up like an oyster. If you listen to them under protest, as it were, you are
very likely to get what you want."

"Our course now seems pretty clear," said I.

"What would you do, then?"

"I would engage a launch and go down the river on the track of the Aurora."

"My dear fellow, it would be a colossal task. She may have touched at any wharf on either side
of the stream between here and Greenwich. Below the bridge there is a perfect labyrinth of
landing-places for miles. It would take you days and days to exhaust them, if you set about it
alone."

"Employ the police, then."

"No. I shall probably call Athelney Jones in at the last moment. He is not a bad fellow, and I
should not like to do anything which would injure him professionally. But I have a fancy for
working it out myself, now that we have gone so far."

"Could we advertise, then, asking for information from wharfingers?"

"Worse and worse! Our men would know that the chase was hot at their heels, and they would
be off out of the country. As it is, they are likely enough to leave, but as long as they think they
are perfectly safe they will be in no hurry. Jones's energy will be of use to us there, for his view
of the case is sure to push itself into the daily press, and the runaways will think that every one
is off on the wrong scent."

"What are we to do, then?" I asked, as we landed near Millbank Penitentiary.

"Take this hansom, drive home, have some breakfast, and get an hour's sleep. It is quite on the
cards that we may be afoot to- night again. Stop at a telegraph-office, cabby! We will keep
Toby, for he may be of use to us yet."

We pulled up at the Great Peter Street post-office, and Holmes despatched his wire. "Whom do
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you think that is to?" he asked, as we resumed our journey.

"I am sure I don't know."

"You remember the Baker Street division of the detective police force whom I employed in the
Jefferson Hope case?"

"Well," said I, laughing.

"This is just the case where they might be invaluable. If they fail, I have other resources; but I
shall try them first. That wire was to my dirty little lieutenant, Wiggins, and I expect that he and
his gang will be with us before we have finished our breakfast."

It was between eight and nine o'clock now, and I was conscious of a strong reaction after the
successive excitements of the night. I was limp and weary, befogged in mind and fatigued in
body. I had not the professional enthusiasm which carried my companion on, nor could I look at
the matter as a mere abstract intellectual problem. As far as the death of Bartholomew Sholto
went, I had heard little good of him, and could feel no intense antipathy to his murderers. The
treasure, however, was a different matter. That, or part of it, belonged rightfully to Miss Morstan.
While there was a chance of recovering it I was ready to devote my life to the one object. True,
if I found it it would probably put her forever beyond my reach. Yet it would be a petty and
selfish love which would be influenced by such a thought as that. If Holmes could work to find
the criminals, I had a tenfold stronger reason to urge me on to find the treasure.

A bath at Baker Street and a complete change freshened me up wonderfully. When I came
down to our room I found the breakfast laid and Homes pouring out the coffee.

"Here it is," said he, laughing, and pointing to an open newspaper. "The energetic Jones and
the ubiquitous reporter have fixed it up between them. But you have had enough of the case.
Better have your ham and eggs first."

I took the paper from him and read the short notice, which was headed "Mysterious Business at
Upper Norwood."

"About twelve o'clock last night," said the Standard, "Mr. Bartholomew Sholto, of Pondicherry
Lodge, Upper Norwood, was found dead in his room under circumstances which point to foul
play. As far as we can learn, no actual traces of violence were found upon Mr. Sholto's person,
but a valuable collection of Indian gems which the deceased gentleman had inherited from his
father has been carried off. The discovery was first made by Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr.
Watson, who had called at the house with Mr. Thaddeus Sholto, brother of the deceased. By a
singular piece of good fortune, Mr. Athelney Jones, the well-known member of the detective
police force, happened to be at the Norwood Police Station, and was on the ground within half
an hour of the first alarm. His trained and experienced faculties were at once directed towards
the detection of the criminals, with the gratifying result that the brother, Thaddeus Sholto, has
already been arrested, together with the housekeeper, Mrs. Bernstone, an Indian butler named
Lal Rao, and a porter, or gatekeeper, named McMurdo. It is quite certain that the thief or thieves
were well acquainted with the house, for Mr. Jones's well-known technical knowledge and his
powers of minute observation have enabled him to prove conclusively that the miscreants could
not have entered by the door or by the window, but must have made their way across the roof of
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the building, and so through a trap-door into a room which communicated with that in which the
body was found. This fact, which has been very clearly made out, proves conclusively that it
was no mere haphazard burglary. The prompt and energetic action of the officers of the law
shows the great advantage of the presence on such occasions of a single vigorous and
masterful mind. We cannot but think that it supplies an argument to those who would wish to
see our detectives more decentralized, and so brought into closer and more effective touch with
the cases which it is their duty to investigate."

"Isn't it gorgeous!" said Holmes, grinning over his coffee-cup. "What do you think of it?"

"I think that we have had a close shave ourselves of being arrested for the crime."

"So do I. I wouldn't answer for our safety now, if he should happen to have another of his
attacks of energy."

At this moment there was a loud ring at the bell, and I could hear Mrs. Hudson, our landlady,
raising her voice in a wail of expostulation and dismay.

"By heaven, Holmes," I said, half rising, "I believe that they are really after us."

"No, it's not quite so bad as that. It is the unofficial force,--the Baker Street irregulars."

As he spoke, there came a swift pattering of naked feet upon the stairs, a clatter of high voices,
and in rushed a dozen dirty and ragged little street-Arabs. There was some show of discipline
among them, despite their tumultuous entry, for they instantly drew up in line and stood facing
us with expectant faces. One of their number, taller and older than the others, stood forward
with an air of lounging superiority which was very funny in such a disreputable little scarecrow.

"Got your message, sir," said he, "and brought 'em on sharp. Three bob and a tanner for
tickets."

"Here you are," said Holmes, producing some silver. "In future they can report to you, Wiggins,
and you to me. I cannot have the house invaded in this way. However, it is just as well that you
should all hear the instructions. I want to find the whereabouts of a steam launch called the
Aurora, owner Mordecai Smith, black with two red streaks, funnel black with a white band. She
is down the river somewhere. I want one boy to be at Mordecai Smith's landing-stage opposite
Millbank to say if the boat comes back. You must divide it out among yourselves, and do both
banks thoroughly. Let me know the moment you have news. Is that all clear?"

"Yes, guv'nor," said Wiggins.

"The old scale of pay, and a guinea to the boy who finds the boat. Here's a day in advance. Now
off you go!" He handed them a shilling each, and away they buzzed down the stairs, and I saw
them a moment later streaming down the street.

"If the launch is above water they will find her," said Holmes, as he rose from the table and lit his
pipe. "They can go everywhere, see everything, overhear every one. I expect to hear before
evening that they have spotted her. In the mean while, we can do nothing but await results. We
cannot pick up the broken trail until we find either the Aurora or Mr. Mordecai Smith."
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"Toby could eat these scraps, I dare say. Are you going to bed, Holmes?"

"No: I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work, though
idleness exhausts me completely. I am going to smoke and to think over this queer business to
which my fair client has introduced us. If ever man had an easy task, this of ours ought to be.
Wooden-legged men are not so common, but the other man must, I should think, be absolutely
unique."

"That other man again!"

"I have no wish to make a mystery of him,--to you, anyway. But you must have formed your own
opinion. Now, do consider the data. Diminutive footmarks, toes never fettered by boots, naked
feet, stone-headed wooden mace, great agility, small poisoned darts. What do you make of all
this?"

"A savage!" I exclaimed. "Perhaps one of those Indians who were the associates of Jonathan
Small."

"Hardly that," said he. "When first I saw signs of strange weapons I was inclined to think so; but
the remarkable character of the footmarks caused me to reconsider my views. Some of the
inhabitants of the Indian Peninsula are small men, but none could have left such marks as that.
The Hindoo proper has long and thin feet. The sandal-wearing Mohammedan has the great toe
well separated from the others, because the thong is commonly passed between. These little
darts, too, could only be shot in one way. They are from a blow-pipe. Now, then, where are we
to find our savage?"

"South American," I hazarded.

He stretched his hand up, and took down a bulky volume from the shelf. "This is the first volume
of a gazetteer which is now being published. It may be looked upon as the very latest authority.
What have we here? 'Andaman Islands, situated 340 miles to the north of Sumatra, in the Bay
of Bengal.' Hum! hum! What's all this? Moist climate, coral reefs, sharks, Port Blair, convict-
barracks, Rutland Island, cottonwoods--Ah, here we are. 'The aborigines of the Andaman
Islands may perhaps claim the distinction of being the smallest race upon this earth, though
some anthropologists prefer the Bushmen of Africa, the Digger Indians of America, and the
Terra del Fuegians. The average height is rather below four feet, although many full-grown
adults may be found who are very much smaller than this. They are a fierce, morose, and
intractable people, though capable of forming most devoted friendships when their confidence
has once been gained.' Mark that, Watson. Now, then, listen to this. 'They are naturally hideous,
having large, misshapen heads, small, fierce eyes, and distorted features. Their feet and hands,
however, are remarkably small. So intractable and fierce are they that all the efforts of the
British official have failed to win them over in any degree. They have always been a terror to
shipwrecked crews, braining the survivors with their stone-headed clubs, or shooting them with
their poisoned arrows. These massacres are invariably concluded by a cannibal feast.' Nice,
amiable people, Watson! If this fellow had been left to his own unaided devices this affair might
have taken an even more ghastly turn. I fancy that, even as it is, Jonathan Small would give a
good deal not to have employed him."

"But how came he to have so singular a companion?"

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"Ah, that is more than I can tell. Since, however, we had already determined that Small had
come from the Andamans, it is not so very wonderful that this islander should be with him. No
doubt we shall know all about it in time. Look here, Watson; you look regularly done. Lie down
there on the sofa, and see if I can put you to sleep."

He took up his violin from the corner, and as I stretched myself out he began to play some low,
dreamy, melodious air,--his own, no doubt, for he had a remarkable gift for improvisation. I have
a vague remembrance of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face, and the rise and fall of his bow.
Then I seemed to be floated peacefully away upon a soft sea of sound, until I found myself in
dream- land, with the sweet face of Mary Morstan looking down upon me.

Chapter IX
A Break in the Chain

It was late in the afternoon before I woke, strengthened and refreshed. Sherlock Holmes still sat
exactly as I had left him, save that he had laid aside his violin and was deep in a book. He
looked across at me, as I stirred, and I noticed that his face was dark and troubled.

"You have slept soundly," he said. "I feared that our talk would wake you."

"I heard nothing," I answered. "Have you had fresh news, then?"

"Unfortunately, no. I confess that I am surprised and disappointed. I expected something

definite by this time. Wiggins has just been up to report. He says that no trace can be found of
the launch. It is a provoking check, for every hour is of importance."

"Can I do anything? I am perfectly fresh now, and quite ready for another night's outing."

"No, we can do nothing. We can only wait. If we go ourselves, the message might come in our
absence, and delay be caused. You can do what you will, but I must remain on guard."

"Then I shall run over to Camberwell and call upon Mrs. Cecil Forrester. She asked me to,
yesterday."

"On Mrs. Cecil Forrester?" asked Holmes, with the twinkle of a smile in his eyes.

"Well, of course Miss Morstan too. They were anxious to hear what happened."

"I would not tell them too much," said Holmes. "Women are never to be entirely trusted,--not the
best of them."

I did not pause to argue over this atrocious sentiment. "I shall be back in an hour or two," I
remarked.

"All right! Good luck! But, I say, if you are crossing the river you may as well return Toby, for I
don't think it is at all likely that we shall have any use for him now."

I took our mongrel accordingly, and left him, together with a half-sovereign, at the old naturalist's
in Pinchin Lane. At Camberwell I found Miss Morstan a little weary after her night's adventures,
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but very eager to hear the news. Mrs. Forrester, too, was full of curiosity. I told them all that we
had done, suppressing, however, the more dreadful parts of the tragedy. Thus, although I spoke
of Mr. Sholto's death, I said nothing of the exact manner and method of it. With all my
omissions, however, there was enough to startle and amaze them.

"It is a romance!" cried Mrs. Forrester. "An injured lady, half a million in treasure, a black
cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian. They take the place of the conventional dragon or
wicked earl."

"And two knight-errants to the rescue," added Miss Morstan, with a bright glance at me.

"Why, Mary, your fortune depends upon the issue of this search. I don't think that you are nearly
excited enough. Just imagine what it must be to be so rich, and to have the world at your feet!"

It sent a little thrill of joy to my heart to notice that she showed no sign of elation at the prospect.
On the contrary, she gave a toss of her proud head, as though the matter were one in which
she took small interest.

"It is for Mr. Thaddeus Sholto that I am anxious," she said. "Nothing else is of any consequence;
but I think that he has behaved most kindly and honorably throughout. It is our duty to clear him
of this dreadful and unfounded charge."

It was evening before I left Camberwell, and quite dark by the time I reached home. My
companion's book and pipe lay by his chair, but he had disappeared. I looked about in the hope
of seeing a note, but there was none.

"I suppose that Mr. Sherlock Holmes has gone out," I said to Mrs. Hudson as she came up to
lower the blinds.

"No, sir. He has gone to his room, sir. Do you know, sir," sinking her voice into an impressive
whisper, "I am afraid for his health?"

"Why so, Mrs. Hudson?"

"Well, he's that strange, sir. After you was gone he walked and he walked, up and down, and up
and down, until I was weary of the sound of his footstep. Then I heard him talking to himself and
muttering, and every time the bell rang out he came on the stairhead, with 'What is that, Mrs.
Hudson?' And now he has slammed off to his room, but I can hear him walking away the same
as ever. I hope he's not going to be ill, sir. I ventured to say something to him about cooling
medicine, but he turned on me, sir, with such a look that I don't know how ever I got out of the
room."

"I don't think that you have any cause to be uneasy, Mrs. Hudson," I answered. "I have seen
him like this before. He has some small matter upon his mind which makes him restless." I tried
to speak lightly to our worthy landlady, but I was myself somewhat uneasy when through the
long night I still from time to time heard the dull sound of his tread, and knew how his keen spirit
was chafing against this involuntary inaction.

At breakfast-time he looked worn and haggard, with a little fleck of feverish color upon either
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cheek.

"You are knocking yourself up, old man," I remarked. "I heard you marching about in the night."

"No, I could not sleep," he answered. "This infernal problem is consuming me. It is too much to
be balked by so petty an obstacle, when all else had been overcome. I know the men, the
launch, everything; and yet I can get no news. I have set other agencies at work, and used
every means at my disposal. The whole river has been searched on either side, but there is no
news, nor has Mrs. Smith heard of her husband. I shall come to the conclusion soon that they
have scuttled the craft. But there are objections to that."

"Or that Mrs. Smith has put us on a wrong scent."

"No, I think that may be dismissed. I had inquiries made, and there is a launch of that
description."

"Could it have gone up the river?"

"I have considered that possibility too, and there is a search- party who will work up as far as
Richmond. If no news comes to- day, I shall start off myself to-morrow, and go for the men
rather than the boat. But surely, surely, we shall hear something."

We did not, however. Not a word came to us either from Wiggins or from the other agencies.
There were articles in most of the papers upon the Norwood tragedy. They all appeared to be
rather hostile to the unfortunate Thaddeus Sholto. No fresh details were to be found, however,
in any of them, save that an inquest was to be held upon the following day. I walked over to
Camberwell in the evening to report our ill success to the ladies, and on my return I found
Holmes dejected and somewhat morose. He would hardly reply to my questions, and busied
himself all evening in an abstruse chemical analysis which involved much heating of retorts and
distilling of vapors, ending at last in a smell which fairly drove me out of the apartment. Up to the
small hours of the morning I could hear the clinking of his test-tubes which told me that he was
still engaged in his malodorous experiment.

In the early dawn I woke with a start, and was surprised to find him standing by my bedside,
clad in a rude sailor dress with a pea-jacket, and a coarse red scarf round his neck.

"I am off down the river, Watson," said he. "I have been turning it over in my mind, and I can see
only one way out of it. It is worth trying, at all events."

"Surely I can come with you, then?" said I.

"No; you can be much more useful if you will remain here as my representative. I am loath to
go, for it is quite on the cards that some message may come during the day, though Wiggins
was despondent about it last night. I want you to open all notes and telegrams, and to act on
your own judgment if any news should come. Can I rely upon you?"

"Most certainly."

"I am afraid that you will not be able to wire to me, for I can hardly tell yet where I may find
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myself. If I am in luck, however, I may not be gone so very long. I shall have news of some sort
or other before I get back."

I had heard nothing of him by breakfast-time. On opening the Standard, however, I found that
there was a fresh allusion to the business. "With reference to the Upper Norwood tragedy," it
remarked, "we have reason to believe that the matter promises to be even more complex and
mysterious than was originally supposed. Fresh evidence has shown that it is quite impossible
that Mr. Thaddeus Sholto could have been in any way concerned in the matter. He and the
housekeeper, Mrs. Bernstone, were both released yesterday evening. It is believed, however,
that the police have a clue as to the real culprits, and that it is being prosecuted by Mr. Athelney
Jones, of Scotland Yard, with all his well-known energy and sagacity. Further arrests may be
expected at any moment."

"That is satisfactory so far as it goes," thought I. "Friend Sholto is safe, at any rate. I wonder
what the fresh clue may be; though it seems to be a stereotyped form whenever the police have
made a blunder."

I tossed the paper down upon the table, but at that moment my eye caught an advertisement in
the agony column. It ran in this way:

"Lost.--Whereas Mordecai Smith, boatman, and his son, Jim, left Smith's Wharf at or about
three o'clock last Tuesday morning in the steam launch Aurora, black with two red stripes,
funnel black with a white band, the sum of five pounds will be paid to any one who can give
information to Mrs. Smith, at Smith's Wharf, or at 221b Baker Street, as to the whereabouts of
the said Mordecai Smith and the launch Aurora."

This was clearly Holmes's doing. The Baker Street address was enough to prove that. It struck
me as rather ingenious, because it might be read by the fugitives without their seeing in it more
than the natural anxiety of a wife for her missing husband.

It was a long day. Every time that a knock came to the door, or a sharp step passed in the
street, I imagined that it was either Holmes returning or an answer to his advertisement. I tried
to read, but my thoughts would wander off to our strange quest and to the ill-assorted and
villainous pair whom we were pursuing. Could there be, I wondered, some radical flaw in my
companion's reasoning. Might he be suffering from some huge self-deception? Was it not
possible that his nimble and speculative mind had built up this wild theory upon faulty premises?
I had never known him to be wrong; and yet the keenest reasoner may occasionally be
deceived. He was likely, I thought, to fall into error through the over-refinement of his logic,--his
preference for a subtle and bizarre explanation when a plainer and more commonplace one lay
ready to his hand. Yet, on the other hand, I had myself seen the evidence, and I had heard the
reasons for his deductions. When I looked back on the long chain of curious circumstances,
many of them trivial in themselves, but all tending in the same direction, I could not disguise
from myself that even if Holmes's explanation were incorrect the true theory must be equally
outre and startling.

At three o'clock in the afternoon there was a loud peal at the bell, an authoritative voice in the
hall, and, to my surprise, no less a person than Mr. Athelney Jones was shown up to me. Very
different was he, however, from the brusque and masterful professor of common sense who had
taken over the case so confidently at Upper Norwood. His expression was downcast, and his
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bearing meek and even apologetic.

"Good-day, sir; good-day," said he. "Mr. Sherlock Holmes is out, I understand."

"Yes, and I cannot be sure when he will be back. But perhaps you would care to wait. Take that
chair and try one of these cigars."

"Thank you; I don't mind if I do," said he, mopping his face with a red bandanna handkerchief.

"And a whiskey-and-soda?"

"Well, half a glass. It is very hot for the time of year; and I have had a good deal to worry and try
me. You know my theory about this Norwood case?"

"I remember that you expressed one."

"Well, I have been obliged to reconsider it. I had my net drawn tightly round Mr. Sholto, sir,
when pop he went through a hole in the middle of it. He was able to prove an alibi which could
not be shaken. From the time that he left his brother's room he was never out of sight of some
one or other. So it could not be he who climbed over roofs and through trap-doors. It's a very
dark case, and my professional credit is at stake. I should be very glad of a little assistance."

"We all need help sometimes," said I.

"Your friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes is a wonderful man, sir," said he, in a husky and confidential
voice. "He's a man who is not to be beat. I have known that young man go into a good many
cases, but I never saw the case yet that he could not throw a light upon. He is irregular in his
methods, and a little quick perhaps in jumping at theories, but, on the whole, I think he would
have made a most promising officer, and I don't care who knows it. I have had a wire from him
this morning, by which I understand that he has got some clue to this Sholto business. Here is
the message."

He took the telegram out of his pocket, and handed it to me. It was dated from Poplar at twelve
o'clock. "Go to Baker Street at once," it said. "If I have not returned, wait for me. I am close on
the track of the Sholto gang. You can come with us to- night if you want to be in at the finish."

"This sounds well. He has evidently picked up the scent again," said I.

"Ah, then he has been at fault too," exclaimed Jones, with evident satisfaction. "Even the best of
us are thrown off sometimes. Of course this may prove to be a false alarm; but it is my duty as
an officer of the law to allow no chance to slip. But there is some one at the door. Perhaps this
is he."

A heavy step was heard ascending the stair, with a great wheezing and rattling as from a man
who was sorely put to it for breath. Once or twice he stopped, as though the climb were too
much for him, but at last he made his way to our door and entered. His appearance
corresponded to the sounds which we had heard. He was an aged man, clad in seafaring garb,
with an old pea-jacket buttoned up to his throat. His back was bowed, his knees were shaky,
and his breathing was painfully asthmatic. As he leaned upon a thick oaken cudgel his
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shoulders heaved in the effort to draw the air into his lungs. He had a colored scarf round his
chin, and I could see little of his face save a pair of keen dark eyes, overhung by bushy white
brows, and long gray side-whiskers. Altogether he gave me the impression of a respectable
master mariner who had fallen into years and poverty.

"What is it, my man?" I asked.

He looked about him in the slow methodical fashion of old age.

"Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?" said he.

"No; but I am acting for him. You can tell me any message you have for him."

"It was to him himself I was to tell it," said he.

"But I tell you that I am acting for him. Was it about Mordecai Smith's boat?"

"Yes. I knows well where it is. An' I knows where the men he is after are. An' I knows where the
treasure is. I knows all about it."

"Then tell me, and I shall let him know."

"It was to him I was to tell it," he repeated, with the petulant obstinacy of a very old man.

"Well, you must wait for him."

"No, no; I ain't goin' to lose a whole day to please no one. If Mr. Holmes ain't here, then Mr.
Holmes must find it all out for himself. I don't care about the look of either of you, and I won't tell
a word."

He shuffled towards the door, but Athelney Jones got in front of him.

"Wait a bit, my friend," said he. "You have important information, and you must not walk off. We
shall keep you, whether you like or not, until our friend returns."

The old man made a little run towards the door, but, as Athelney Jones put his broad back up
against it, he recognized the uselessness of resistance.

"Pretty sort o' treatment this!" he cried, stamping his stick. "I come here to see a gentleman, and
you two, who I never saw in my life, seize me and treat me in this fashion!"

"You will be none the worse," I said. "We shall recompense you for the loss of your time. Sit
over here on the sofa, and you will not have long to wait."

He came across sullenly enough, and seated himself with his face resting on his hands. Jones
and I resumed our cigars and our talk. Suddenly, however, Holmes's voice broke in upon us.

"I think that you might offer me a cigar too," he said.

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We both started in our chairs. There was Holmes sitting close to us with an air of quiet
amusement.

"Holmes!" I exclaimed. "You here! But where is the old man?"

"Here is the old man," said he, holding out a heap of white hair. "Here he is,--wig, whiskers,
eyebrows, and all. I thought my disguise was pretty good, but I hardly expected that it would
stand that test."

"Ah, You rogue!" cried Jones, highly delighted. "You would have made an actor, and a rare one.
You had the proper workhouse cough, and those weak legs of yours are worth ten pound a
week. I thought I knew the glint of your eye, though. You didn't get away from us so easily, You
see."

"I have been working in that get-up all day," said he, lighting his cigar. "You see, a good many of
the criminal classes begin to know me,--especially since our friend here took to publishing some
of my cases: so I can only go on the war-path under some simple disguise like this. You got my
wire?"

"Yes; that was what brought me here."

"How has your case prospered?"

"It has all come to nothing. I have had to release two of my prisoners, and there is no evidence
against the other two."

"Never mind. We shall give you two others in the place of them. But you must put yourself under
my orders. You are welcome to all the official credit, but you must act on the line that I point out.
Is that agreed?"

"Entirely, if you will help me to the men."

"Well, then, in the first place I shall want a fast police-boat-- a steam launch--to be at the
Westminster Stairs at seven o'clock."

"That is easily managed. There is always one about there; but I can step across the road and
telephone to make sure."

"Then I shall want two stanch men, in case of resistance."

"There will be two or three in the boat. What else?"

"When we secure the men we shall get the treasure. I think that it would be a pleasure to my
friend here to take the box round to the young lady to whom half of it rightfully belongs. Let her
be the first to open it.--Eh, Watson?"

"It would be a great pleasure to me."

"Rather an irregular proceeding," said Jones, shaking his head. "However, the whole thing is
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irregular, and I suppose we must wink at it. The treasure must afterwards be handed over to the
authorities until after the official investigation."

"Certainly. That is easily managed. One other point. I should much like to have a few details
about this matter from the lips of Jonathan Small himself. You know I like to work the detail of
my cases out. There is no objection to my having an unofficial interview with him, either here in
my rooms or elsewhere, as long as he is efficiently guarded?"

"Well, you are master of the situation. I have had no proof yet of the existence of this Jonathan
Small. However, if you can catch him I don't see how I can refuse you an interview with him."

"That is understood, then?"

"Perfectly. Is there anything else?"

"Only that I insist upon your dining with us. It will be ready in half an hour. I have oysters and a
brace of grouse, with something a little choice in white wines.--Watson, you have never yet
recognized my merits as a housekeeper."

Chapter X
The End of the Islander

Our meal was a merry one. Holmes coud talk exceedingly well when he chose, and that night
he did choose. He appeared to be in a state of nervous exaltation. I have never known him so
brilliant. He spoke on a quick succession of subjects,--on miracle-plays, on medieval pottery, on
Stradivarius violins, on the Buddhism of Ceylon, and on the war-ships of the future,-- handling
each as though he had made a special study of it. His bright humor marked the reaction from
his black depression of the preceding days. Athelney Jones proved to be a sociable soul in his
hours of relaxation, and faced his dinner with the air of a bon vivant. For myself, I felt elated at
the thought that we were nearing the end of our task, and I caught something of Holmes's
gaiety. None of us alluded during dinner to the cause which had brought us together.

When the cloth was cleared, Holmes glanced at his watch, and filled up three glasses with port.
"One bumper," said he, "to the success of our little expedition. And now it is high time we were
off. Have you a pistol, Watson?"

"I have my old service-revolver in my desk."

"You had best take it, then. It is well to be prepared. I see that the cab is at the door. I ordered it
for half-past six."

It was a little past seven before we reached the Westminster wharf, and found our launch
awaiting us. Holmes eyed it critically.

"Is there anything to mark it as a police-boat?"

"Yes,--that green lamp at the side."

"Then take it off."

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The small change was made, we stepped on board, and the ropes were cast off. Jones,
Holmes, and I sat in the stern. There was one man at the rudder, one to tend the engines, and
two burly police-inspectors forward.

"Where to?" asked Jones.

"To the Tower. Tell them to stop opposite Jacobson's Yard."

Our craft was evidently a very fast one. We shot past the long lines of loaded barges as though
they were stationary. Holmes smiled with satisfaction as we overhauled a river steamer and left
her behind us.

"We ought to be able to catch anything on the river," he said.

"Well, hardly that. But there are not many launches to beat us."

"We shall have to catch the Aurora, and she has a name for being a clipper. I will tell you how
the land lies, Watson. You recollect how annoyed I was at being balked by so small a thing?"

"Yes."

"Well, I gave my mind a thorough rest by plunging into a chemical analysis. One of our greatest
statesmen has said that a change of work is the best rest. So it is. When I had succeeded in
dissolving the hydrocarbon which I was at work at, I came back to our problem of the Sholtos,
and thought the whole matter out again. My boys had been up the river and down the river
without result. The launch was not at any landing-stage or wharf, nor had it returned. Yet it
could hardly have been scuttled to hide their traces,--though that always remained as a possible
hypothesis if all else failed. I knew this man Small had a certain degree of low cunning, but I did
not think him capable of anything in the nature of delicate finesse. That is usually a product of
higher education. I then reflected that since he had certainly been in London some time--as we
had evidence that he maintained a continual watch over Pondicherry Lodge--he could hardly
leave at a moment's notice, but would need some little time, if it were only a day, to arrange his
affairs. That was the balance of probability, at any rate."

"It seems to me to be a little weak," said I. "It is more probable that he had arranged his affairs
before ever he set out upon his expedition."

"No, I hardly think so. This lair of his would be too valuable a retreat in case of need for him to
give it up until he was sure that he could do without it. But a second consideration struck me.
Jonathan Small must have felt that the peculiar appearance of his companion, however much
he may have top-coated him, would give rise to gossip, and possibly be associated with this
Norwood tragedy. He was quite sharp enough to see that. They had started from their head-
quarters under cover of darkness, and he would wish to get back before it was broad light. Now,
it was past three o'clock, according to Mrs. Smith, when they got the boat. It would be quite
bright, and people would be about in an hour or so. Therefore, I argued, they did not go very far.
They paid Smith well to hold his tongue, reserved his launch for the final escape, and hurried to
their lodgings with the treasure- box. In a couple of nights, when they had time to see what view
the papers took, and whether there was any suspicion, they would make their way under cover
of darkness to some ship at Gravesend or in the Downs, where no doubt they had already
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arranged for passages to America or the Colonies."

"But the launch? They could not have taken that to their lodgings."

"Quite so. I argued that the launch must be no great way off, in spite of its invisibility. I then put
myself in the place of Small, and looked at it as a man of his capacity would. He would probably
consider that to send back the launch or to keep it at a wharf would make pursuit easy if the
police did happen to get on his track. How, then, could he conceal the launch and yet have her
at hand when wanted? I wondered what I should do myself if I were in his shoes. I could only
think of one way of doing it. I might land the launch over to some boat-builder or repairer, with
directions to make a trifling change in her. She would then be removed to his shed or yard, and
so be effectually concealed, while at the same time I could have her at a few hours' notice."

"That seems simple enough."

"It is just these very simple things which are extremely liable to be overlooked. However, I
determined to act on the idea. I started at once in this harmless seaman's rig and inquired at all
the yards down the river. I drew blank at fifteen, but at the sixteenth--Jacobson's--I learned that
the Aurora had been handed over to them two days ago by a wooden-legged man, with some
trivial directions as to her rudder. 'There ain't naught amiss with her rudder,' said the foreman.
'There she lies, with the red streaks.' At that moment who should come down but Mordecai
Smith, the missing owner? He was rather the worse for liquor. I should not, of course, have
known him, but he bellowed out his name and the name of his launch. 'I want her to-night at
eight o'clock,' said he,--'eight o'clock sharp, mind, for I have two gentlemen who won't be kept
waiting.' They had evidently paid him well, for he was very flush of money, chucking shillings
about to the men. I followed him some distance, but he subsided into an ale-house: so I went
back to the yard, and, happening to pick up one of my boys on the way, I stationed him as a
sentry over the launch. He is to stand at water's edge and wave his handkerchief to us when
they start. We shall be lying off in the stream, and it will be a strange thing if we do not take
men, treasure, and all."

"You have planned it all very neatly, whether they are the right men or not," said Jones; "but if
the affair were in my hands I should have had a body of police in Jacobson's Yard, and arrested
them when they came down."

"Which would have been never. This man Small is a pretty shrewd fellow. He would send a
scout on ahead, and if anything made him suspicious lie snug for another week."

"But you might have stuck to Mordecai Smith, and so been led to their hiding-place," said I.

"In that case I should have wasted my day. I think that it is a hundred to one against Smith
knowing where they live. As long as he has liquor and good pay, why should he ask questions?
They send him messages what to do. No, I thought over every possible course, and this is the
best."

While this conversation had been proceeding, we had been shooting the long series of bridges
which span the Thames. As we passed the City the last rays of the sun were gilding the cross
upon the summit of St. Paul's. It was twilight before we reached the Tower.

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"That is Jacobson's Yard," said Holmes, pointing to a bristle of masts and rigging on the Surrey
side. "Cruise gently up and down here under cover of this string of lighters." He took a pair of
night-glasses from his pocket and gazed some time at the shore. "I see my sentry at his post,"
he remarked, "but no sign of a handkerchief."

"Suppose we go down-stream a short way and lie in wait for them," said Jones, eagerly. We
were all eager by this time, even the policemen and stokers, who had a very vague idea of what
was going forward.

"We have no right to take anything for granted," Holmes answered. "It is certainly ten to one that
they go down-stream, but we cannot be certain. From this point we can see the entrance of the
yard, and they can hardly see us. It will be a clear night and plenty of light. We must stay where
we are. See how the folk swarm over yonder in the gaslight."

"They are coming from work in the yard."

"Dirty-looking rascals, but I suppose every one has some little immortal spark concealed about
him. You would not think it, to look at them. There is no a priori probability about it. A strange
enigma is man!"

"Some one calls him a soul concealed in an animal," I suggested.

"Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarks that, while the individual
man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for
example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an
average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the
statistician. But do I see a handkerchief? Surely there is a white flutter over yonder."

"Yes, it is your boy," I cried. "I can see him plainly."

"And there is the Aurora," exclaimed Holmes, "and going like the devil! Full speed ahead,
engineer. Make after that launch with the yellow light. By heaven, I shall never forgive myself if
she proves to have the heels of us!"

She had slipped unseen through the yard-entrance and passed behind two or three small craft,
so that she had fairly got her speed up before we saw her. Now she was flying down the
stream, near in to the shore, going at a tremendous rate. Jones looked gravely at her and shook
his head.

"She is very fast," he said. "I doubt if we shall catch her."

"We MUST catch her!" cried Holmes, between his teeth. "Heap it on, stokers! Make her do all
she can! If we burn the boat we must have them!"

We were fairly after her now. The furnaces roared, and the powerful engines whizzed and
clanked, like a great metallic heart. Her sharp, steep prow cut through the river-water and sent
two rolling waves to right and to left of us. With every throb of the engines we sprang and
quivered like a living thing. One great yellow lantern in our bows threw a long, flickering funnel
of light in front of us. Right ahead a dark blur upon the water showed where the Aurora lay, and
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the swirl of white foam behind her spoke of the pace at which she was going. We flashed past
barges, steamers, merchant-vessels, in and out, behind this one and round the other. Voices
hailed us out of the darkness, but still the Aurora thundered on, and still we followed close upon
her track.

"Pile it on, men, pile it on!" cried Holmes, looking down into the engine-room, while the fierce
glow from below beat upon his eager, aquiline face. "Get every pound of steam you can."

"I think we gain a little," said Jones, with his eyes on the Aurora.

"I am sure of it," said I. "We shall be up with her in a very few minutes."

At that moment, however, as our evil fate would have it, a tug with three barges in tow
blundered in between us. It was only by putting our helm hard down that we avoided a collision,
and before we could round them and recover our way the Aurora had gained a good two
hundred yards. She was still, however, well in view, and the murky uncertain twilight was setting
into a clear starlit night. Our boilers were strained to their utmost, and the frail shell vibrated and
creaked with the fierce energy which was driving us along. We had shot through the Pool, past
the West India Docks, down the long Deptford Reach, and up again after rounding the Isle of
Dogs. The dull blur in front of us resolved itself now clearly enough into the dainty Aurora. Jones
turned our search-light upon her, so that we could plainly see the figures upon her deck. One
man sat by the stern, with something black between his knees over which he stooped. Beside
him lay a dark mass which looked like a Newfoundland dog. The boy held the tiller, while
against the red glare of the furnace I could see old Smith, stripped to the waist, and shovelling
coals for dear life. They may have had some doubt at first as to whether we were really pursuing
them, but now as we followed every winding and turning which they took there could no longer
be any question about it. At Greenwich we were about three hundred paces behind them. At
Blackwall we could not have been more than two hundred and fifty. I have coursed many
creatures in many countries during my checkered career, but never did sport give me such a
wild thrill as this mad, flying man-hunt down the Thames. Steadily we drew in upon them, yard
by yard. In the silence of the night we could hear the panting and clanking of their machinery.
The man in the stern still crouched upon the deck, and his arms were moving as though he
were busy, while every now and then he would look up and measure with a glance the distance
which still separated us. Nearer we came and nearer. Jones yelled to them to stop. We were not
more than four boat's lengths behind them, both boats flying at a tremendous pace. It was a
clear reach of the river, with Barking Level upon one side and the melancholy Plumstead
Marshes upon the other. At our hail the man in the stern sprang up from the deck and shook his
two clinched fists at us, cursing the while in a high, cracked voice. He was a good-sized,
powerful man, and as he stood poising himself with legs astride I could see that from the thigh
downwards there was but a wooden stump upon the right side. At the sound of his strident,
angry cries there was movement in the huddled bundle upon the deck. It straightened itself into
a little black man--the smallest I have ever seen--with a great, misshapen head and a shock of
tangled, dishevelled hair. Holmes had already drawn his revolver, and I whipped out mine at the
sight of this savage, distorted creature. He was wrapped in some sort of dark ulster or blanket,
which left only his face exposed; but that face was enough to give a man a sleepless night.
Never have I seen features so deeply marked with all bestiality and cruelty. His small eyes
glowed and burned with a sombre light, and his thick lips were writhed back from his teeth,
which grinned and chattered at us with a half animal fury.

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"Fire if he raises his hand," said Holmes, quietly. We were within a boat's-length by this time,
and almost within touch of our quarry. I can see the two of them now as they stood, the white
man with his legs far apart, shrieking out curses, and the unhallowed dwarf with his hideous
face, and his strong yellow teeth gnashing at us in the light of our lantern.

It was well that we had so clear a view of him. Even as we looked he plucked out from under his
covering a short, round piece of wood, like a school-ruler, and clapped it to his lips. Our pistols
rang out together. He whirled round, threw up his arms, and with a kind of choking cough fell
sideways into the stream. I caught one glimpse of his venomous, menacing eyes amid the white
swirl of the waters. At the same moment the wooden- legged man threw himself upon the
rudder and put it hard down, so that his boat made straight in for the southern bank, while we
shot past her stern, only clearing her by a few feet. We were round after her in an instant, but
she was already nearly at the bank. It was a wild and desolate place, where the moon
glimmered upon a wide expanse of marsh-land, with pools of stagnant water and beds of
decaying vegetation. The launch with a dull thud ran up upon the mud-bank, with her bow in the
air and her stern flush with the water. The fugitive sprang out, but his stump instantly sank its
whole length into the sodden soil. In vain he struggled and writhed. Not one step could he
possibly take either forwards or backwards. He yelled in impotent rage, and kicked frantically
into the mud with his other foot, but his struggles only bored his wooden pin the deeper into the
sticky bank. When we brought our launch alongside he was so firmly anchored that it was only
by throwing the end of a rope over his shoulders that we were able to haul him out, and to drag
him, like some evil fish, over our side. The two Smiths, father and son, sat sullenly in their
launch, but came aboard meekly enough when commanded. The Aurora herself we hauled off
and made fast to our stern. A solid iron chest of Indian workmanship stood upon the deck. This,
there could be no question, was the same that had contained the ill- omened treasure of the
Sholtos. There was no key, but it was of considerable weight, so we transferred it carefully to
our own little cabin. As we steamed slowly up-stream again, we flashed our search-light in every
direction, but there was no sign of the Islander. Somewhere in the dark ooze at the bottom of
the Thames lie the bones of that strange visitor to our shores.

"See here," said Holmes, pointing to the wooden hatchway. "We were hardly quick enough with
our pistols." There, sure enough, just behind where we had been standing, stuck one of those
murderous darts which we knew so well. It must have whizzed between us at the instant that we
fired. Holmes smiled at it and shrugged his shoulders in his easy fashion, but I confess that it
turned me sick to think of the horrible death which had passed so close to us that night.

Chapter XI
The Great Agra Treasure

Our captive sat in the cabin opposite to the iron box which he had done so much and waited so
long to gain. He was a sunburned, reckless-eyed fellow, with a net-work of lines and wrinkles all
over his mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life. There was a singular
prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man who was not to be easily turned from
his purpose. His age may have been fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was thickly
shot with gray. His face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy brows and
aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen, a terrible expression when moved to anger. He
sat now with his handcuffed hands upon his lap, and his head sunk upon his breast, while he
looked with his keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had been the cause of his ill- doings. It
seemed to me that there was more sorrow than anger in his rigid and contained countenance.
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Once he looked up at me with a gleam of something like humor in his eyes.

"Well, Jonathan Small," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I am sorry that it has come to this."

"And so am I, sir," he answered, frankly. "I don't believe that I can swing over the job. I give you
my word on the book that I never raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell- hound
Tonga who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was as grieved as if it
had been my blood- relation. I welted the little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it
was done, and I could not undo it again."

"Have a cigar," said Holmes; "and you had best take a pull out of my flask, for you are very wet.
How could you expect so small and weak a man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto
and hold him while you were climbing the rope?"

"You seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir. The truth is that I hoped to find
the room clear. I knew the habits of the house pretty well, and it was the time when Mr. Sholto
usually went down to his supper. I shall make no secret of the business. The best defence that I
can make is just the simple truth. Now, if it had been the old major I would have swung for him
with a light heart. I would have thought no more of knifing him than of smoking this cigar. But it's
cursed hard that I should be lagged over this young Sholto, with whom I had no quarrel
whatever."

"You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard. He is going to bring you up
to my rooms, and I shall ask you for a true account of the matter. You must make a clean breast
of it, for if you do I hope that I may be of use to you. I think I can prove that the poison acts so
quickly that the man was dead before ever you reached the room."

"That he was, sir. I never got such a turn in my life as when I saw him grinning at me with his
head on his shoulder as I climbed through the window. It fairly shook me, sir. I'd have half killed
Tonga for it if he had not scrambled off. That was how he came to leave his club, and some of
his darts too, as he tells me, which I dare say helped to put you on our track; though how you
kept on it is more than I can tell. I don't feel no malice against you for it. But it does seem a
queer thing," he added, with a bitter smile, "that I who have a fair claim to nigh upon half a
million of money should spend the first half of my life building a breakwater in the Andamans,
and am like to spend the other half digging drains at Dartmoor. It was an evil day for me when
first I clapped eyes upon the merchant Achmet and had to do with the Agra treasure, which
never brought anything but a curse yet upon the man who owned it. To him it brought murder, to
Major Sholto it brought fear and guilt, to me it has meant slavery for life."

At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad face and heavy shoulders into the tiny cabin.
"Quite a family party," he remarked. "I think I shall have a pull at that flask, Holmes. Well, I think
we may all congratulate each other. Pity we didn't take the other alive; but there was no choice.
I say, Holmes, you must confess that you cut it rather fine. It was all we could do to overhaul
her."

"All is well that ends well," said Holmes. "But I certainly did not know that the Aurora was such a
clipper."

"Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and that if he had had another man
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to help him with the engines we should never have caught her. He swears he knew nothing of
this Norwood business."

"Neither he did," cried our prisoner,--"not a word. I chose his launch because I heard that she
was a flier. We told him nothing, but we paid him well, and he was to get something handsome if
we reached our vessel, the Esmeralda, at Gravesend, outward bound for the Brazils."

"Well, if he has done no wrong we shall see that no wrong comes to him. If we are pretty quick
in catching our men, we are not so quick in condemning them." It was amusing to notice how
the consequential Jones was already beginning to give himself airs on the strength of the
capture. From the slight smile which played over Sherlock Holmes's face, I could see that the
speech had not been lost upon him.

"We will be at Vauxhall Bridge presently," said Jones, "and shall land you, Dr. Watson, with the
treasure-box. I need hardly tell you that I am taking a very grave responsibility upon myself in
doing this. It is most irregular; but of course an agreement is an agreement. I must, however, as
a matter of duty, send an inspector with you, since you have so valuable a charge. You will
drive, no doubt?"

"Yes, I shall drive."

"It is a pity there is no key, that we may make an inventory first. You will have to break it open.
Where is the key, my man?"

"At the bottom of the river," said Small, shortly.

"Hum! There was no use your giving this unnecessary trouble. We have had work enough
already through you. However, doctor, I need not warn you to be careful. Bring the box back
with you to the Baker Street rooms. You will find us there, on our way to the station."

They landed me at Vauxhall, with my heavy iron box, and with a bluff, genial inspector as my
companion. A quarter of an hour's drive brought us to Mrs. Cecil Forrester's. The servant
seemed surprised at so late a visitor. Mrs. Cecil Forrester was out for the evening, she
explained, and likely to be very late. Miss Morstan, however, was in the drawing-room: so to the
drawing- room I went, box in hand, leaving the obliging inspector in the cab.

She was seated by the open window, dressed n some sort of white diaphanous material, with a
little touch of scarlet at the neck and waist. The soft light of a shaded lamp fell upon her as she
leaned back in the basket chair, playing over her sweet, grave face, and tinting with a dull,
metallic sparkle the rich coils of her luxuriant hair. One white arm and hand drooped over the
side of the chair, and her whole pose and figure spoke of an absorbing melancholy. At the
sound of my foot-fall she sprang to her feet, however, and a bright flush of surprise and of
pleasure colored her pale cheeks.

"I heard a cab drive up," she said. "I thought that Mrs. Forrester had come back very early, but I
never dreamed that it might be you. What news have you brought me?"

"I have brought something better than news," said I, putting down the box upon the table and
speaking jovially and boisterously, though my heart was heavy within me. "I have brought you
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something which is worth all the news in the world. I have brought you a fortune."

She glanced at iron box. "Is that the treasure, then?" she asked, coolly enough.

"Yes, this is the great Agra treasure. Half of it is yours and half is Thaddeus Sholto's. You will
have a couple of hundred thousand each. Think of that! An annuity of ten thousand pounds.
There will be few richer young ladies in England. Is it not glorious?"

I think that I must have been rather overacting my delight, and that she detected a hollow ring in
my congratulations, for I saw her eyebrows rise a little, and she glanced at me curiously.

"If I have it," said she, "I owe it to you."

"No, no," I answered, "not to me, but to my friend Sherlock Holmes. With all the will in the world,
I could never have followed up a clue which has taxed even his analytical genius. As it was, we
very nearly lost it at the last moment."

"Pray sit down and tell me all about it, Dr. Watson," said she.

I narrated briefly what had occurred since I had seen her last,-- Holmes's new method of
search, the discovery of the Aurora, the appearance of Athelney Jones, our expedition in the
evening, and the wild chase down the Thames. She listened with parted lips and shining eyes to
my recital of our adventures. When I spoke of the dart which had so narrowly missed us, she
turned so white that I feared that she was about to faint.

"It is nothing," she said, as I hastened to pour her out some water. "I am all right again. It was a
shock to me to hear that I had placed my friends in such horrible peril."

"That is all over," I answered. "It was nothing. I will tell you no more gloomy details. Let us turn
to something brighter. There is the treasure. What could be brighter than that? I got leave to
bring it with me, thinking that it would interest you to be the first to see it."

"It would be of the greatest interest to me," she said. There was no eagerness in her voice,
however. It had struck her, doubtless, that it might seem ungracious upon her part to be
indifferent to a prize which had cost so much to win.

"What a pretty box!" she said, stooping over it. This is Indian work, I suppose?"

"Yes; it is Benares metal-work."

"And so heavy!" she exclaimed, trying to raise it. "The box alone must be of some value. Where
is the key?"

"Small threw it into the Thames," I answered. "I must borrow Mrs. Forrester's poker." There was
in the front a thick and broad hasp, wrought in the image of a sitting Buddha. Under this I thrust
the end of the poker and twisted it outward as a lever. The hasp sprang open with a loud snap.
With trembling fingers I flung back the lid. We both stood gazing in astonishment. The box was
empty!

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No wonder that it was heavy. The iron-work was two-thirds of an inch thick all round. It was
massive, well made, and solid, like a chest constructed to carry things of great price, but not one
shred or crumb of metal or jewelry lay within it. It was absolutely and completely empty.

"The treasure is lost," said Miss Morstan, calmly.

As I listened to the words and realized what they meant, a great shadow seemed to pass from
my soul. I did not know how this Agra treasure had weighed me down, until now that it was
finally removed. It was selfish, no doubt, disloyal, wrong, but I could realize nothing save that
the golden barrier was gone from between us. "Thank God!" I ejaculated from my very heart.

She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile. "Why do you say that?" she asked.

"Because you are within my reach again," I said, taking her hand. She did not withdraw it.
"Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a man loved a woman. Because this treasure, these
riches, sealed my lips. Now that they are gone I can tell you how I love you. That is why I said,
'Thank God.'"

"Then I say, 'Thank God,' too," she whispered, as I drew her to my side. Whoever had lost a
treasure, I knew that night that I had gained one.

Chapter XII
The Strange Story of Jonathan Small

A very patient man was that inspector in the cab, for it was a weary time before I rejoined him.
His face clouded over when I showed him the empty box.

"There goes the reward!" said he, gloomily. "Where there is no money there is no pay. This
night's work would have been worth a tenner each to Sam Brown and me if the treasure had
been there."

"Mr. Thaddeus Sholto is a rich man," I said. "He will see that you are rewarded, treasure or no."

The inspector shook his head despondently, however. "It's a bad job," he repeated; "and so Mr.
Athelney Jones will think."

His forecast proved to be correct, for the detective looked blank enough when I got to Baker
Street and showed him the empty box. They had only just arrived, Holmes, the prisoner, and he,
for they had changed their plans so far as to report themselves at a station upon the way. My
companion lounged in his arm-chair with his usual listless expression, while Small sat stolidly
opposite to him with his wooden leg cocked over his sound one. As I exhibited the empty box he
leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.

"This is your doing, Small," said Athelney Jones, angrily.

"Yes, I have put it away where you shall never lay hand upon it," he cried, exultantly. "It is my
treasure; and if I can't have the loot I'll take darned good care that no one else does. I tell you
that no living man has any right to it, unless it is three men who are in the Andaman convict-
barracks and myself. I know now that I cannot have the use of it, and I know that they cannot. I
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have acted all through for them as much as for myself. It's been the sign of four with us always.
Well I know that they would have had me do just what I have done, and throw the treasure into
the Thames rather than let it go to kith or kin of Sholto or of Morstan. It was not to make them
rich that we did for Achmet. You'll find the treasure where the key is, and where little Tonga is.
When I saw that your launch must catch us, I put the loot away in a safe place. There are no
rupees for you this journey."

"You are deceiving us, Small," said Athelney Jones, sternly. "If you had wished to throw the
treasure into the Thames it would have been easier for you to have thrown box and all."

"Easier for me to throw, and easier for you to recover," he answered, with a shrewd, sidelong
look. "The man that was clever enough to hunt me down is clever enough to pick an iron box
from the bottom of a river. Now that they are scattered over five miles or so, it may be a harder
job. It went to my heart to do it, though. I was half mad when you came up with us. However,
there's no good grieving over it. I've had ups in my life, and I've had downs, but I've learned not
to cry over spilled milk."

"This is a very serious matter, Small," said the detective. "If you had helped justice, instead of
thwarting it in this way, you would have had a better chance at your trial."

"Justice!" snarled the ex-convict. "A pretty justice! Whose loot is this, if it is not ours? Where is
the justice that I should give it up to those who have never earned it? Look how I have earned it!
Twenty long years in that fever-ridden swamp, all day at work under the mangrove-tree, all night
chained up in the filthy convict-huts, bitten by mosquitoes, racked with ague, bullied by every
cursed black-faced policeman who loved to take it out of a white man. That was how I earned
the Agra treasure; and you talk to me of justice because I cannot bear to feel that I have paid
this price only that another may enjoy it! I would rather swing a score of times, or have one of
Tonga's darts in my hide, than live in a convict's cell and feel that another man is at his ease in
a palace with the money that should be mine." Small had dropped his mask of stoicism, and all
this came out in a wild whirl of words, while his eyes blazed, and the handcuffs clanked together
with the impassioned movement of his hands. I could understand, as I saw the fury and the
passion of the man, that it was no groundless or unnatural terror which had possessed Major
Sholto when he first learned that the injured convict was upon his track.

"You forget that we know nothing of all this," said Holmes quietly. "We have not heard your
story, and we cannot tell how far justice may originally have been on your side."

"Well, sir, you have been very fair-spoken to me, though I can see that I have you to thank that I
have these bracelets upon my wrists. Still, I bear no grudge for that. It is all fair and above-
board. If you want to hear my story I have no wish to hold it back. What I say to you is God's
truth, every word of it. Thank you; you can put the glass beside me here, and I'll put my lips to it
if I am dry.

"I am a Worcestershire man myself,--born near Pershore. I dare say you would find a heap of
Smalls living there now if you were to look. I have often thought of taking a look round there, but
the truth is that I was never much of a credit to the family, and I doubt if they would be so very
glad to see me. They were all steady, chapel-going folk, small farmers, well known and
respected over the country-side, while I was always a bit of a rover. At last, however, when I
was about eighteen, I gave them no more trouble, for I got into a mess over a girl, and could
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only get out of it again by taking the queen's shilling and joining the 3d Buffs, which was just
starting for India.

"I wasn't destined to do much soldiering, however. I had just got past the goose-step, and
learned to handle my musket, when I was fool enough to go swimming in the Ganges. Luckily
for me, my company sergeant, John Holder, was in the water at the same time, and he was one
of the finest swimmers in the service. A crocodile took me, just as I was half-way across, and
nipped off my right leg as clean as a surgeon could have done it, just above the knee. What with
the shock and the loss of blood, I fainted, and should have drowned if Holder had not caught
hold of me and paddled for the bank. I was five months in hospital over it, and when at last I
was able to limp out of it with this timber toe strapped to my stump I found myself invalided out
of the army and unfitted for any active occupation.

"I was, as you can imagine, pretty down on my luck at this time, for I was a useless cripple
though not yet in my twentieth year. However, my misfortune soon proved to be a blessing in
disguise. A man named Abelwhite, who had come out there as an indigo- planter, wanted an
overseer to look after his coolies and keep them up to their work. He happened to be a friend of
our colonel's, who had taken an interest in me since the accident. To make a long story short,
the colonel recommended me strongly for the post and, as the work was mostly to be done on
horseback, my leg was no great obstacle, for I had enough knee left to keep good grip on the
saddle. What I had to do was to ride over the plantation, to keep an eye on the men as they
worked, and to report the idlers. The pay was fair, I had comfortable quarters, and altogether I
was content to spend the remainder of my life in indigo-planting. Mr. Abelwhite was a kind man,
and he would often drop into my little shanty and smoke a pipe with me, for white folk out there
feel their hearts warm to each other as they never do here at home.

"Well, I was never in luck's way long. Suddenly, without a note of warning, the great mutiny
broke upon us. One month India lay as still and peaceful, to all appearance, as Surrey or Kent;
the next there were two hundred thousand black devils let loose, and the country was a perfect
hell. Of course you know all about it, gentlemen,--a deal more than I do, very like, since reading
is not in my line. I only know what I saw with my own eyes. Our

plantation was at a place called Muttra, near the border of the Northwest Provinces. Night after
night the whole sky was alight with the burning bungalows, and day after day we had small
companies of Europeans passing through our estate with their wives and children, on their way
to Agra, where were the nearest troops. Mr. Abelwhite was an obstinate man. He had it in his
head that the affair had been exaggerated, and that it would blow over as suddenly as it had
sprung up. There he sat on his veranda, drinking whiskey-pegs and smoking cheroots, while the
country was in a blaze about him. Of course we stuck by him, I and Dawson, who, with his wife,
used to do the book-work and the managing. Well, one fine day the crash came. I had been
away on a distant plantation, and was riding slowly home in the evening, when my eye fell upon
something all huddled together at the bottom of a steep nullah. I rode down to see what it was,
and the cold struck through my heart when I found it was Dawson's wife, all cut into ribbons,
and half eaten by jackals and native dogs. A little further up the road Dawson himself was lying
on his face, quite dead, with an empty revolver in his hand and four Sepoys lying across each
other in front of him. I reined up my horse, wondering which way I should turn, but at that
moment I saw thick smoke curling up from Abelwhite's bungalow and the flames beginning to
burst through the roof. I knew then that I could do my employer no good, but would only throw
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my own life away if I meddled in the matter. From where I stood I could see hundreds of the
black fiends, with their red coats still on their backs, dancing and howling round the burning
house. Some of them pointed at me, and a couple of bullets sang past my head; so I broke
away across the paddy-fields, and found myself late at night safe within the walls at Agra.

"As it proved, however, there was no great safety there, either. The whole country was up like a
swarm of bees. Wherever the English could collect in little bands they held just the ground that
their guns commanded. Everywhere else they were helpless fugitives. It was a fight of the
millions against the hundreds; and the cruellest part of it was that these men that we fought
against, foot, horse, and gunners, were our own picked troops, whom we had taught and
trained, handling our own weapons, and blowing our own bugle-calls. At Agra there were the 3d
Bengal Fusiliers, some Sikhs, two troops of horse, and a battery of artillery. A volunteer corps of
clerks and merchants had been formed, and this I joined, wooden leg and all. We went out to
meet the rebels at Shahgunge early in July, and we beat them back for a time, but our powder
gave out, and we had to fall back upon the city. Nothing but the worst news came to us from
every side,--which is not to be wondered at, for if you look at the map you will see that we were
right in the heart of it. Lucknow is rather better than a hundred miles to the east, and Cawnpore
about as far to the south. From every point on the compass there was nothing but torture and
murder and outrage.

"The city of Agra is a great place, swarming with fanatics and fierce devil-worshippers of all
sorts. Our handful of men were lost among the narrow, winding streets. Our leader moved
across the river, therefore, and took up his position in the old fort at Agra. I don't know if any of
you gentlemen have ever read or heard anything of that old fort. It is a very queer place,--the
queerest that ever I was in, and I have been in some rum corners, too. First of all, it is enormous
in size. I should think that the enclosure must be acres and acres. There is a modern part, which
took all our garrison, women, children, stores, and everything else, with plenty of room over. But
the modern part is nothing like the size of the old quarter, where nobody goes, and which is
given over to the scorpions and the centipedes. It is all full of great deserted halls, and winding
passages, and long corridors twisting in and out, so that it is easy enough for folk to get lost in it.
For this reason it was seldom that any one went into it, though now and again a party with
torches might go exploring.

"The river washes along the front of the old fort, and so protects it, but on the sides and behind
there are many doors, and these had to be guarded, of course, in the old quarter as well as in
that which was actually held by our troops. We were short-handed, with hardly men enough to
man the angles of the building and to serve the guns. It was impossible for us, therefore, to
station a strong guard at every one of the innumerable gates. What we did was to organize a
central guard- house in the middle of the fort, and to leave each gate under the charge of one
white man and two or three natives. I was selected to take charge during certain hours of the
night of a small isolated door upon the southwest side of the building. Two Sikh troopers were
placed under my command, and I was instructed if anything went wrong to fire my musket,
when I might rely upon help coming at once from the central guard. As the guard was a good
two hundred paces away, however, and as the space between was cut up into a labyrinth of
passages and corridors, I had great doubts as to whether they could arrive in time to be of any
use in case of an actual attack.

"Well, I was pretty proud at having this small command given me, since I was a raw recruit, and
a game-legged one at that. For two nights I kept the watch with my Punjaubees. They were tall,
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fierce-looking chaps, Mahomet Singh and Abdullah Khan by name, both old fighting-men who
had borne arms against us at Chilian- wallah. They could talk English pretty well, but I could get
little out of them. They preferred to stand together and jabber all night in their queer Sikh lingo.
For myself, I used to stand outside the gate-way, looking down on the broad, winding river and
on the twinkling lights of the great city. The beating of drums, the rattle of tomtoms, and the yells
and howls of the rebels, drunk with opium and with bang, were enough to remind us all night of
our dangerous neighbors across the stream. Every two hours the officer of the night used to
come round to all the posts, to make sure that all was well.

"The third night of my watch was dark and dirty, with a small, driving rain. It was dreary work
standing in the gate-way hour after hour in such weather. I tried again and again to make my
Sikhs talk, but without much success. At two in the morning the rounds passed, and broke for a
moment the weariness of the night. Finding that my companions would not be led into
conversation, I took out my pipe, and laid down my musket to strike the match. In an instant the
two Sikhs were upon me. One of them snatched my firelock up and levelled it at my head, while
the other held a great knife to my throat and swore between his teeth that he would plunge it
into me if I moved a step.

"My first thought was that these fellows were in league with the rebels, and that this was the
beginning of an assault. If our door were in the hands of the Sepoys the place must fall, and the
women and children be treated as they were in Cawnpore. Maybe you gentlemen think that I
am just making out a case for myself, but I give you my word that when I thought of that, though
I felt the point of the knife at my throat, I opened my mouth with the intention of giving a scream,
if it was my last one, which might alarm the main guard. The man who held me seemed to know
my thoughts; for, even as I braced myself to it, he whispered, 'Don't make a noise. The fort is
safe enough. There are no rebel dogs on this side of the river.' There was the ring of truth in
what he said, and I knew that if I raised my voice I was a dead man. I could read it in the fellow's
brown eyes. I waited, therefore, in silence, to see what it was that they wanted from me.

"'Listen to me, Sahib,' said the taller and fiercer of the pair, the one whom they called Abdullah
Khan. 'You must either be with us now or you must be silenced forever. The thing is too great a
one for us to hesitate. Either you are heart and soul with us on your oath on the cross of the
Christians, or your body this night shall be thrown into the ditch and we shall pass over to our
brothers in the rebel army. There is no middle way. Which is it to be, death or life? We can only
give you three minutes to decide, for the time is passing, and all must be done before the
rounds come again.'

"'How can I decide?' said I. 'You have not told me what you want of me. But I tell you now that if
it is anything against the safety of the fort I will have no truck with it, so you can drive home your
knife and welcome.'

"'It is nothing against the fort,' said he. 'We only ask you to do that which your countrymen come
to this land for. We ask you to be rich. If you will be one of us this night, we will swear to you
upon the naked knife, and by the threefold oath which no Sikh was ever known to break, that
you shall have your fair share of the loot. A quarter of the treasure shall be yours. We can say
no fairer.'

"'But what is the treasure, then?' I asked. 'I am as ready to be rich as you can be, if you will but
show me how it can be done.'
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"'You will swear, then,' said he, 'by the bones of your father, by the honor of your mother, by the
cross of your faith, to raise no hand and speak no word against us, either now or afterwards?'

"'I will swear it,' I answered, 'provided that the fort is not endangered.'

"'Then my comrade and I will swear that you shall have a quarter of the treasure which shall be
equally divided among the four of us.'

"'There are but three,' said I.

"'No; Dost Akbar must have his share. We can tell the tale to you while we await them. Do you
stand at the gate, Mahomet Singh, and give notice of their coming. The thing stands thus,
Sahib, and I tell it to you because I know that an oath is binding upon a Feringhee, and that we
may trust you. Had you been a lying Hindoo, though you had sworn by all the gods in their false
temples, your blood would have been upon the knife, and your body in the water. But the Sikh
knows the Englishman, and the Englishman knows the Sikh. Hearken, then, to what I have to
say.

"'There is a rajah in the northern provinces who has much wealth, though his lands are small.
Much has come to him from his father, and more still he has set by himself, for he is of a low
nature and hoards his gold rather than spend it. When the troubles broke out he would be
friends both with the lion and the tiger,--with the Sepoy and with the Company's Raj. Soon,
however, it seemed to him that the white men's day was come, for through all the land he could
hear of nothing but of their death and their overthrow. Yet, being a careful man, he made such
plans that, come what might, half at least of his treasure should be left to him. That which was in
gold and silver he kept by him in the vaults of his palace, but the most precious stones and the
choicest pearls that he had he put in an iron box, and sent it by a trusty servant who, under the
guise of a merchant, should take it to the fort at Agra, there to lie until the land is at peace.
Thus, if the rebels won he would have his money, but if the Company conquered his jewels
would be saved to him. Having thus divided his hoard, he threw himself into the cause of the
Sepoys, since they were strong upon his borders. By doing this, mark you, Sahib, his property
becomes the due of those who have been true to their salt.

"'This pretended merchant, who travels under the name of Achmet, is now in the city of Agra,
and desires to gain his way into the fort. He has with him as travelling-companion my foster-
brother Dost Akbar, who knows his secret. Dost Akbar has promised this night to lead him to a
side-postern of the fort, and has chosen this one for his purpose. Here he will come presently,
and here he will find Mahomet Singh and myself awaiting him. The place is lonely, and none
shall know of his coming. The world shall know of the merchant Achmet no more, but the great
treasure of the rajah shall be divided among us. What say you to it, Sahib?'

"In Worcestershire the life of a man seems a great and a sacred thing; but it is very different
when there is fire and blood all round you and you have been used to meeting death at every
turn. Whether Achmet the merchant lived or died was a thing as light as air to me, but at the talk
about the treasure my heart turned to it, and I thought of what I might do in the old country with
it, and how my folk would stare when they saw their ne'er-do-well coming back with his pockets
full of gold moidores. I had, therefore, already made up my mind. Abdullah Khan, however,
thinking that I hesitated, pressed the matter more closely.

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"'Consider, Sahib,' said he, 'that if this man is taken by the commandant he will be hung or shot,
and his jewels taken by the government, so that no man will be a rupee the better for them.
Now, since we do the taking of him, why should we not do the rest as well? The jewels will be
as well with us as in the Company's coffers. There will be enough to make every one of us rich
men and great chiefs. No one can know about the matter, for here we are cut off from all men.
What could be better for the purpose? Say again, then, Sahib, whether you are with us, or if we
must look upon you as an enemy.'

"'I am with you heart and soul,' said I.

"'It is well,' he answered, handing me back my firelock. 'You see that we trust you, for your word,
like ours, is not to be broken. We have now only to wait for my brother and the merchant.'

"'Does your brother know, then, of what you will do?' I asked.

"'The plan is his. He has devised it. We will go to the gate and share the watch with Mahomet
Singh.'

"The rain was still falling steadily, for it was just the beginning of the wet season. Brown, heavy
clouds were drifting across the sky, and it was hard to see more than a stone-cast. A deep moat
lay in front of our door, but the water was in places nearly dried up, and it could easily be
crossed. It was strange to me to be standing there with those two wild Punjaubees waiting for
the man who was coming to his death.

"Suddenly my eye caught the glint of a shaded lantern at the other side of the moat. It vanished
among the mound-heaps, and then appeared again coming slowly in our direction.

"'Here they are!' I exclaimed.

"'You will challenge him, Sahib, as usual,' whispered Abdullah. 'Give him no cause for fear.
Send us in with him, and we shall do the rest while you stay here on guard. Have the lantern
ready to uncover, that we may be sure that it is indeed the man.'

"The light had flickered onwards, now stopping and now advancing, until I could see two dark
figures upon the other side of the moat. I let them scramble down the sloping bank, splash
through the mire, and climb half-way up to the gate, before I challenged them.

"'Who goes there?' said I, in a subdued voice.

"'Friends,' came the answer. I uncovered my lantern and threw a flood of light upon them. The
first was an enormous Sikh, with a black beard which swept nearly down to his cummerbund.
Outside of a show I have never seen so tall a man. The other was a little, fat, round fellow, with
a great yellow turban, and a bundle in his hand, done up in a shawl. He seemed to be all in a
quiver with fear, for his hands twitched as if he had the ague, and his head kept turning to left
and right with two bright little twinkling eyes, like a mouse when he ventures out from his hole. It
gave me the chills to think of killing him, but I thought of the treasure, and my heart set as hard
as a flint within me. When he saw my white face he gave a little chirrup of joy and came running
up towards me.

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"'Your protection, Sahib,' he panted,--'your protection for the unhappy merchant Achmet. I have
travelled across Rajpootana that I might seek the shelter of the fort at Agra. I have been robbed
and beaten and abused because I have been the friend of the Company. It is a blessed night
this when I am once more in safety,--I and my poor possessions.'

"'What have you in the bundle?' I asked.

"'An iron box,' he answered, 'which contains one or two little family matters which are of no
value to others, but which I should be sorry to lose. Yet I am not a beggar; and I shall reward
you, young Sahib, and your governor also, if he will give me the shelter I ask.'

"I could not trust myself to speak longer with the man. The more I looked at his fat, frightened
face, the harder did it seem that we should slay him in cold blood. It was best to get it over.

"'Take him to the main guard,' said I. The two Sikhs closed in upon him on each side, and the
giant walked behind, while they marched in through the dark gate-way. Never was a man so
compassed round with death. I remained at the gate-way with the lantern.

"I could hear the measured tramp of their footsteps sounding through the lonely corridors.
Suddenly it ceased, and I heard voices, and a scuffle, with the sound of blows. A moment later
there came, to my horror, a rush of footsteps coming in my direction, with the loud breathing of a
running man. I turned my lantern down the long, straight passage, and there was the fat man,
running like the wind, with a smear of blood across his face, and close at his heels, bounding
like a tiger, the great black-bearded Sikh, with a knife flashing in his hand. I have never seen a
man run so fast as that little merchant. He was gaining on the Sikh, and I could see that if he
once passed me and got to the open air he would save himself yet. My heart softened to him,
but again the thought of his treasure turned me hard and bitter. I cast my firelock between his
legs as he raced past, and he rolled twice over like a shot rabbit. Ere he could stagger to his
feet the Sikh was upon him, and buried his knife twice in his side. The man never uttered moan
nor moved muscle, but lay were he had fallen. I think myself that he may have broken his neck
with the fall. You see, gentlemen, that I am keeping my promise. I am telling you every work of
the business just exactly as it happened, whether it is in my favor or not."

He stopped, and held out his manacled hands for the whiskey-and- water which Holmes had
brewed for him. For myself, I confess that I had now conceived the utmost horror of the man,
not only for this cold-blooded business in which he had been concerned, but even more for the
somewhat flippant and careless way in which he narrated it. Whatever punishment was in store
for him, I felt that he might expect no sympathy from me. Sherlock Holmes and Jones sat with
their hands upon their knees, deeply interested in the story, but with the same disgust written
upon their faces. He may have observed it, for there was a touch of defiance in his voice and
manner as he proceeded.

"It was all very bad, no doubt," said he. "I should like to know how many fellows in my shoes
would have refused a share of this loot when they knew that they would have their throats cut
for their pains. Besides, it was my life or his when once he was in the fort. If he had got out, the
whole business would come to light, and I should have been court-martialled and shot as likely
as not; for people were not very lenient at a time like that."

"Go on with your story," said Holmes, shortly.

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"Well, we carried him in, Abdullah, Akbar, and I. A fine weight he was, too, for all that he was so
short. Mahomet Singh was left to guard the door. We took him to a place which the Sikhs had
already prepared. It was some distance off, where a winding passage leads to a great empty
hall, the brick walls of which were all crumbling to pieces. The earth floor had sunk in at one
place, making a natural grave, so we left Achmet the merchant there, having first covered him
over with loose bricks. This done, we all went back to the treasure.

"It lay where he had dropped it when he was first attacked. The box was the same which now
lies open upon your table. A key was hung by a silken cord to that carved handle upon the top.
We opened it, and the light of the lantern gleamed upon a collection of gems such as I have
read of and thought about when I was a little lad at Pershore. It was blinding to look upon them.
When we had feasted our eyes we took them all out and made a list of them. There were one
hundred and forty-three diamonds of the first water, including one which has been called, I
believe, 'the Great Mogul' and is said to be the second largest stone in existence. Then there
were ninety-seven very fine emeralds, and one hundred and seventy rubies, some of which,
however, were small. There were forty carbuncles, two hundred and ten sapphires, sixty-one
agates, and a great quantity of beryls, onyxes, cats'-eyes, turquoises, and other stones, the very
names of which I did not know at the time, though I have become more familiar with them since.
Besides this, there were nearly three hundred very fine pearls, twelve of which were set in a
gold coronet. By the way, these last had been taken out of the chest and were not there when I
recovered it.

"After we had counted our treasures we put them back into the chest and carried them to the
gate-way to show them to Mahomet Singh. Then we solemnly renewed our oath to stand by
each other and be true to our secret. We agreed to conceal our loot in a safe place until the
country should be at peace again, and then to divide it equally among ourselves. There was no
use dividing it at present, for if gems of such value were found upon us it would cause
suspicion, and there was no privacy in the fort nor any place where we could keep them. We
carried the box, therefore, into the same hall where we had buried the body, and there, under
certain bricks in the best-preserved wall, we made a hollow and put our treasure. We made
careful note of the place, and next day I drew four plans, one for each of us, and put the sign of
the four of us at the bottom, for we had sworn that we should each always act for all, so that
none might take advantage. That is an oath that I can put my hand to my heart and swear that I
have never broken.

"Well, there's no use my telling you gentlemen what came of the Indian mutiny. After Wilson
took Delhi and Sir Colin relieved Lucknow the back of the business was broken. Fresh troops
came pouring in, and Nana Sahib made himself scarce over the frontier. A flying column under
Colonel Greathed came round to Agra and cleared the Pandies away from it. Peace seemed to
be settling upon the country, and we four were beginning to hope that the time was at hand
when we might safely go off with our shares of the plunder. In a moment, however, our hopes
were shattered by our being arrested as the murderers of Achmet.

"It came about in this way. When the rajah put his jewels into the hands of Achmet he did it
because he knew that he was a trusty man. They are suspicious folk in the East, however: so
what does this rajah do but take a second even more trusty servant and set him to play the spy
upon the first? This second man was ordered never to let Achmet out of his sight, and he
followed him like his shadow. He went after him that night and saw him pass through the
doorway. Of course he thought he had taken refuge in the fort, and applied for admission there
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himself next day, but could find no trace of Achmet. This seemed to him so strange that he
spoke about it to a sergeant of guides, who brought it to the ears of the commandant. A
thorough search was quickly made, and the body was discovered. Thus at the very moment that
we thought that all was safe we were all four seized and brought to trial on a charge of
murder,--three of us because we had held the gate that night, and the fourth because he was
known to have been in the company of the murdered man. Not a word about the jewels came
out at the trial, for the rajah had been deposed and driven out of India: so no one had any
particular interest in them. The murder, however, was clearly made out, and it was certain that
we must all have been concerned in it. The three Sikhs got penal servitude for life, and I was
condemned to death, though my sentence was afterwards commuted into the same as the
others.

"It was rather a queer position that we found ourselves in then. There we were all four tied by
the leg and with precious little chance of ever getting out again, while we each held a secret
which might have put each of us in a palace if we could only have made use of it. It was enough
to make a man eat his heart out to have to stand the kick and the cuff of every petty jack-in-
office, to have rice to eat and water to drink, when that gorgeous fortune was ready for him
outside, just waiting to be picked up. It might have driven me mad; but I was always a pretty
stubborn one, so I just held on and bided my time.

"At last it seemed to me to have come. I was changed from Agra to Madras, and from there to
Blair Island in the Andamans. There are very few white convicts at this settlement, and, as I had
behaved well from the first, I soon found myself a sort of privileged person. I was given a hut in
Hope Town, which is a small place on the slopes of Mount Harriet, and I was left pretty much to
myself. It is a dreary, fever-stricken place, and all beyond our little clearings was infested with
wild cannibal natives, who were ready enough to blow a poisoned dart at us if they saw a
chance. There was digging, and ditching, and yam- planting, and a dozen other things to be
done, so we were busy enough all day; though in the evening we had a little time to ourselves.
Among other things, I learned to dispense drugs for the surgeon, and picked up a smattering of
his knowledge. All the time I was on the lookout for a chance of escape; but it is hundreds of
miles from any other land, and there is little or no wind in those seas: so it was a terribly difficult
job to get away.

"The surgeon, Dr. Somerton, was a fast, sporting young chap, and the other young officers
would meet in his rooms of an evening and play cards. The surgery, where I used to make up
my drugs, was next to his sitting-room, with a small window between us. Often, if I felt
lonesome, I used to turn out the lamp in the surgery, and then, standing there, I could hear their
talk and watch their play. I am fond of a hand at cards myself, and it was almost as good as
having one to watch the others. There was Major Sholto, Captain Morstan, and Lieutenant
Bromley Brown, who were in command of the native troops, and there was the surgeon himself,
and two or three prison-officials, crafty old hands who played a nice sly safe game. A very snug
little party they used to make.

"Well, there was one thing which very soon struck me, and that was that the soldiers used
always to lose and the civilians to win. Mind, I don't say that there was anything unfair, but so it
was. These prison-chaps had done little else than play cards ever since they had been at the
Andamans, and they knew each other's game to a point, while the others just played to pass the
time and threw their cards down anyhow. Night after night the soldiers got up poorer men, and
the poorer they got the more keen they were to play. Major Sholto was the hardest hit. He used
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to pay in notes and gold at first, but soon it came to notes of hand and for big sums. He
sometimes would win for a few deals, just to give him heart, and then the luck would set in
against him worse than ever. All day he would wander about as black as thunder, and he took
to drinking a deal more than was good for him.

"One night he lost even more heavily than usual. I was sitting in my hut when he and Captain
Morstan came stumbling along on the way to their quarters. They were bosom friends, those
two, and never far apart. The major was raving about his losses.

"'It's all up, Morstan,' he was saying, as they passed my hut. 'I shall have to send in my papers. I
am a ruined man.'

"'Nonsense, old chap!' said the other, slapping him upon the shoulder. 'I've had a nasty facer
myself, but--' That was all I could hear, but it was enough to set me thinking.

"A couple of days later Major Sholto was strolling on the beach: so I took the chance of
speaking to him.

"'I wish to have your advice, major,' said I.

"'Well, Small, what is it?' he asked, taking his cheroot from his lips.

"'I wanted to ask you, sir,' said I, 'who is the proper person to whom hidden treasure should be
handed over. I know where half a million worth lies, and, as I cannot use it myself, I thought
perhaps the best thing that I could do would be to hand it over to the proper authorities, and
then perhaps they would get my sentence shortened for me.'

"'Half a million, Small?' he gasped, looking hard at me to see if I was in earnest.

"'Quite that, sir,--in jewels and pearls. It lies there ready for any one. And the queer thing about
it is that the real owner is outlawed and cannot hold property, so that it belongs to the first
comer.'

"'To government, Small,' he stammered,--'to government.' But he said it in a halting fashion, and
I knew in my heart that I had got him.

"'You think, then, sir, that I should give the information to the Governor-General?' said I, quietly.

"'Well, well, you must not do anything rash, or that you might repent. Let me hear all about it,
Small. Give me the facts.'

"I told him the whole story, with small changes so that he could not identify the places. When I
had finished he stood stock still and full of thought. I could see by the twitch of his lip that there
was a struggle going on within him.

"'This is a very important matter, Small,' he said, at last. 'You must not say a word to any one
about it, and I shall see you again soon.'

"Two nights later he and his friend Captain Morstan came to my hut in the dead of the night with
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a lantern.

"'I want you just to let Captain Morstan hear that story from your own lips, Small,' said he.

"I repeated it as I had told it before.

"'It rings true, eh?' said he. 'It's good enough to act upon?'

"Captain Morstan nodded.

"'Look here, Small,' said the major. 'We have been talking it over, my friend here and I, and we
have come to the conclusion that this secret of yours is hardly a government matter, after all,
but is a private concern of your own, which of course you have the power of disposing of as you
think best. Now, the question is, what price would you ask for it? We might be inclined to take it
up, and at least look into it, if we could agree as to terms.' He tried to speak in a cool, careless
way, but his eyes were shining with excitement and greed.

"'Why, as to that, gentlemen,' I answered, trying also to be cool, but feeling as excited as he did,
'there is only one bargain which a man in my position can make. I shall want yo to help me to
my freedom, and to help my three companions to theirs. We shall then take you into
partnership, and give you a fifth share to divide between you.'

"'Hum!' said he. 'A fifth share! That is not very tempting.'

"'It would come to fifty thousand apiece,' said I.

"'But how can we gain your freedom? You know very well that you ask an impossibility.'

"'Nothing of the sort,' I answered. 'I have thought it all out to the last detail. The only bar to our
escape is that we can get no boat fit for the voyage, and no provisions to last us for so long a
time. There are plenty of little yachts and yawls at Calcutta or Madras which would serve our
turn well. Do you bring one over. We shall engage to get aboard her by night, and if you will
drop us on any part of the Indian coast you will have done your part of the bargain.'

"'If there were only one,' he said.

"'None or all,' I answered. 'We have sworn it. The four of us must always act together.'

"'You see, Morstan,' said he, 'Small is a man of his word. He does not flinch from his friend. I
think we may very well trust him.'

"'It's a dirty business,' the other answered. 'Yet, as you say, the money would save our
commissions handsomely.'

"'Well, Small,' said the major, 'we must, I suppose, try and meet you. We must first, of course,
test the truth of your story. Tell me where the box is hid, and I shall get leave of absence and go
back to India in the monthly relief-boat to inquire into the affair.'

"'Not so fast,' said I, growing colder as he got hot. 'I must have the consent of my three
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comrades. I tell you that it is four or none with us.'

"'Nonsense!' he broke in. 'What have three black fellows to do with our agreement?'

"'Black or blue,' said I, 'they are in with me, and we all go together.'

"Well, the matter ended by a second meeting, at which Mahomet Singh, Abdullah Khan, and
Dost Akbar were all present. We talked the matter over again, and at last we came to an
arrangement. We were to provide both the officers with charts of the part of the Agra fort and
mark the place in the wall where the treasure was hid. Major Sholto was to go to India to test
our story. If he found the box he was to leave it there, to send out a small yacht provisioned for
a voyage, which was to lie off Rutland Island, and to which we were to make our way, and finally
to return to his duties. Captain Morstan was then to apply for leave of absence, to meet us at
Agra, and there we were to have a final division of the treasure, he taking the major's share as
well as his own. All this we sealed by the most solemn oaths that the mind could think or the lips
utter. I sat up all night with paper and ink, and by the morning I had the two charts all ready,
signed with the sign of four,--that is, of Abdullah, Akbar, Mahomet, and myself.

"Well, gentlemen, I weary you with my long story, and I know that my friend Mr. Jones is
impatient to get me safely stowed in chokey. I'll make it as short as I can. The villain Sholto went
off to India, but he never came back again. Captain Morstan showed me his name among a list
of passengers in one of the mail- boats very shortly afterwards. His uncle had died, leaving him
a fortune, and he had left the army, yet he could stoop to treat five men as he had treated us.
Morstan went over to Agra shortly afterwards, and found, as we expected, that the treasure was
indeed gone. The scoundrel had stolen it all, without carrying out one of the conditions on which
we had sold him the secret. From that day I lived only for vengeance. I thought of it by day and I
nursed it by night. It became an overpowering, absorbing passion with me. I cared nothing for
the law,--nothing for the gallows. To escape, to track down Sholto, to have my hand upon his
throat,--that was my one thought. Even the Agra treasure had come to be a smaller thing in my
mind than the slaying of Sholto.

"Well, I have set my mind on many things in this life, and never one which I did not carry out.
But it was weary years before my time came. I have told you that I had picked up something of
medicine. One day when Dr. Somerton was down with a fever a little Andaman Islander was
picked up by a convict-gang in the woods. He was sick to death, and had gone to a lonely place
to die. I took him in hand, though he was as venomous as a young snake, and after a couple of
months I got him all right and able to walk. He took a kind of fancy to me then, and would hardly
go back to his woods, but was always hanging about my hut. I learned a little of his lingo from
him, and this made him all the fonder of me.

"Tonga--for that was his name--was a fine boatman, and owned a big, roomy canoe of his own.
When I found that he was devoted to me and would do anything to serve me, I saw my chance
of escape. I talked it over with him. He was to bring his boat round on a certain night to an old
wharf which was never guarded, and there he was to pick me up. I gave him directions to have
several gourds of water and a lot of yams, cocoa-nuts, and sweet potatoes.

"He was stanch and true, was little Tonga. No man ever had a more faithful mate. At the night
named he had his boat at the wharf. As it chanced, however, there was one of the convict-
guard down there,--a vile Pathan who had never missed a chance of insulting and injuring me. I
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had always vowed vengeance, and now I had my chance. It was as if fate had placed him in my
way that I might pay my debt before I left the island. He stood on the bank with his back to me,
and his carbine on his shoulder. I looked about for a stone to beat out his brains with, but none
could I see. Then a queer thought came into my head and showed me where I could lay my
hand on a weapon. I sat down in the darkness and unstrapped my wooden leg. With three long
hops I was on him. He put his carbine to his shoulder, but I struck him full, and knocked the
whole front of his skull in. You can see the split in the wood now where I hit him. We both went
down together, for I could not keep my balance, but when I got up I found him still lying quiet
enough. I made for the boat, and in an hour we were well out at sea. Tonga had brought all his
earthly possessions with him, his arms and his gods. Among other things, he had a long
bamboo spear, and some Andaman cocoa-nut matting, with which I made a sort of sail. For ten
days we were beating about, trusting to luck, and on the eleventh we were picked up by a trader
which was going from Singapore to Jiddah with a cargo of Malay pilgrims. They were a rum
crowd, and Tonga and I soon managed to settle down among them. They had one very good
quality: they let you alone and asked no questions.

"Well, if I were to tell you all the adventures that my little chum and I went through, you would
not thank me, for I would have you here until the sun was shining. Here and there we drifted
about the world, something always turning up to keep us from London. All the time, however, I
never lost sight of my purpose. I would dream of Sholto at night. A hundred times I have killed
him in my sleep. At last, however, some three or four years ago, we found ourselves in England.
I had no great difficulty in finding where Sholto lived, and I set to work to discover whether he
had realized the treasure, or if he still had it. I made friends with someone who could help me,--I
name no names, for I don't want to get any one else in a hole,--and I soon found that he still had
the jewels. Then I tried to get at him in many ways; but he was pretty sly, and had always two
prize-fighters, besides his sons and his khitmutgar, on guard over him.

"One day, however, I got word that he was dying. I hurried at once to the garden, mad that he
should slip out of my clutches like that, and, looking through the window, I saw him lying in his
bed, with his sons on each side of him. I'd have come through and taken my chance with the
three of them, only even as I looked at him his jaw dropped, and I knew that he was gone. I got
into his room that same night, though, and I searched his papers to see if there was any record
of where he had hidden our jewels. There was not a line, however: so I came away, bitter and
savage as a man could be. Before I left I bethought me that if I ever met my Sikh friends again it
would be a satisfaction to know that I had left some mark of our hatred: so I scrawled down the
sign of the four of us, as it had been on the chart, and I pinned it on his bosom. It was too much
that he should be taken to the grave without some token from the men whom he had robbed
and befooled.

"We earned a living at this time by my exhibiting poor Tonga at fairs and other such places as
the black cannibal. He would eat raw meat and dance his war-dance: so we always had a hatful
of pennies after a day's work. I still heard all the news from Pondicherry Lodge, and for some
years there was no news to hear, except that they were hunting for the treasure. At last,
however, came what we had waited for so long. The treasure had been found. It was up at the
top of the house, in Mr. Bartholomew Sholto's chemical laboratory. I came at once and had a
look at the place, but I could not see how with my wooden leg I was to make my way up to it. I
learned, however, about a trap- door in the roof, and also about Mr. Sholto's supper-hour. It
seemed to me that I could manage the thing easily through Tonga. I brought him out with me
with a long rope wound round his waist. He could climb like a cat, and he soon made his way
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through the roof, but, as ill luck would have it, Bartholomew Sholto was still in the room, to his
cost. Tonga thought he had done something very clever in killing him, for when I came up by the
rope I found him strutting about as proud as a peacock. Very much surprised was he when I
made at him with the rope's end and cursed him for a little blood-thirsty imp. I took the treasure-
box and let it down, and then slid down myself, having first left the sign of the four upon the
table, to show that the jewels had come back at last to those who had most right to them. Tonga
then pulled up the rope, closed the window, and made off the way that he had come.

"I don't know that I have anything else to tell you. I had heard a waterman speak of the speed of
Smith's launch the Aurora, so I thought she would be a handy craft for our escape. I engaged
with old Smith, and was to give him a big sum if he got us safe to our ship. He knew, no doubt,
that there was some screw loose, but he was not in our secrets. All this is the truth, and if I tell it
to you, gentlemen, it is not to amuse you,--for you have not done me a very good turn,--but it is
because I believe the best defence I can make is just to hold back nothing, but let all the world
know how badly I have myself been served by Major Sholto, and how innocent I am of the death
of his son."

"A very remarkable account," said Sherlock Holmes. "A fitting wind-up to an extremely
interesting case. There is nothing at all new to me in the latter part of your narrative, except that
you brought your own rope. That I did not know. By the way, I had hoped that Tonga had lost all
his darts; yet he managed to shoot one at us in the boat."

"He had lost them all, sir, except the one which was in his blow- pipe at the time."

"Ah, of course," said Holmes. "I had not thought of that."

"Is there any other point which you would like to ask about?" asked the convict, affably.

"I think not, thank you," my companion answered.

"Well, Holmes," said Athelney Jones, "You are a man to be humored, and we all know that you
are a connoisseur of crime, but duty is duty, and I have gone rather far in doing what you and
your friend asked me. I shall feel more at ease when we have our story-teller here safe under
lock and key. The cab still waits, and there are two inspectors down-stairs. I am much obliged to
you both for your assistance. Of course you will be wanted at the trial. Good-night to you."

"Good-night, gentlemen both," said Jonathan Small.

"You first, Small," remarked the wary Jones as they left the room. "I'll take particular care that
you don't club me with your wooden leg, whatever you may have done to the gentleman at the
Andaman Isles."

"Well, and there is the end of our little drama," I remarked, after we had set some time smoking
in silence. "I fear that it may be the last investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying
your methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honor to accept me as a husband in prospective."

He gave a most dismal groan. "I feared as much," said he. "I really cannot congratulate you."

I was a little hurt. "Have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my choice?" I asked.
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"Not at all. I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I ever met, and might have been
most useful in such work as we have been doing. She had a decided genius that way: witness
the way in which she preserved that Agra plan from all the other papers of her father. But love is
an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place
above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment."

"I trust," said I, laughing, "that my judgment may survive the ordeal. But you look weary."

"Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag for a week."

"Strange," said I, "how terms of what in another man I should call laziness alternate with your
fits of splendid energy and vigor."

"Yes," he answered, "there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer and also of a pretty spry
sort of fellow. I often think of those lines of old Goethe,--

Schade dass die Natur nur EINEN Mensch aus Dir schuf, Denn zum wuerdigen Mann war und
zum Schelmen der Stoff.

"By the way, a propos of this Norwood business, you see that they had, as I surmised, a
confederate in the house, who could be none other than Lal Rao, the butler: so Jones actually
has the undivided honor of having caught one fish in his great haul."

"The division seems rather unfair," I remarked. "You have done all the work in this business. I
get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?"

"For me," said Sherlock Holmes, "there still remains the cocaine- bottle." And he stretched his
long white hand up for it.

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